


You are Wrong to Want a Heart

by LieutenantSaavik



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Witchcraft, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2018-08-30 18:52:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 55
Words: 64,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8545132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LieutenantSaavik/pseuds/LieutenantSaavik
Summary: If you treat a girl like a machine, she will believe she is.





	1. Chapter 1

**United States, Present-Day**

“This was a bad idea,” Peggy grumbles to herself. She huffs, folds her arms, and eyes the door, considering abandoning her promise to Angie, her best friend, that she’d stay the night with her. The entire house is full of shitty EDM music, seeming to shake the walls and floor, and teenagers all over are gyrating, inebriated by god-knows-what.

Peggy gives the door one more longing look. But she’s here and she can’t leave for a while yet, so she decides she had better make the most of it.

 

It had been Angie who had thrown the party, celebrating her casting as Evita in the school’s production of the musical. Peggy had reluctantly agreed to go, but only because Angie would be there. Now, though, Angie had disappeared into the crowd with her boyfriend from the nearest all-boys school, and, looking at the dancing teenagers, Peggy decided to stay at the edges of the room instead of braving a forest of wildly swinging limbs.

She makes her way over to the weed-smelling couch (really, Martinelli? Really?) and settles herself delicately on an armrest, not trusting the cushions. To her surprise, though, there’s another girl there already, perched on the other armrest a few feet from Peggy. She’s the new girl in the grade, Dorothy; Peggy remembers her introducing herself earlier that week. “Call me Dottie,” she’d said, and then fallen out of Peggy’s mind almost altogether.

She’s holding a wine glass delicately and tapping a long red fingernail against it, watching the other teenagers as if they’re her prey. Something about the girl both intrigues Peggy and gives her the shivers. It’s odd, though, because now that she thinks about it, when Dottie introduced herself, she’d seemed all innocuous smiles.

It’s likewise strange she’s got a wine glass instead of a beer-or-mixer-filled red solo cup, as everyone else has. There’s one on the floor by Peggy’s foot and she kicks it away with the tip of her heel. It rolls in a circle, spilling clear liquid that Peggy’s _very_ sure isn’t water onto Angie’s hardwood floor. Disgusting.

She turns her gaze back to Dorothy -- Dottie -- and decides to talk to her, for lack of anything better to do. _Oh Angie, why did I let you drag me into this?_ she thinks in agony, knowing still that she’s really the one at fault.

“Hey, there, Dottie,” Peggy says, lifting herself from the armrest and walking over to the new girl. “You don’t look like you’re having much fun.”

Dottie turns and laughs lightly. “Oh, this is fine,” she says, raising a hand to her face and resting her fingernails against her cheekbone. “I guess I’m just not much of a party person. You’re Peggy, right?”

Peggy blinks. Dottie’s face had completely changed from calculating to cheerful in less than a heartbeat. Either she’s a fantastic actress, or Peggy had totally misinterpreted her stance.

“Me neither,” she says, going with the latter explanation. “It’s not…” she eyes the scene and searches the room. “Not my typical place to hang out.”

“I can tell.” Dottie laughs again. Her laugh is sharp and her light blue-green eyes even sharper. “You seem a bit too mature for this scene.”

“I, uh,” Peggy chuckles awkwardly. “I don’t know about that. I think I’m just introverted.”

Dottie raises an eyebrow and nods thoughtfully, standing and brushing her hand down her dress. “If you like, we could go out.”

“Hm?”

“They won’t miss us.”

“But-”

“Come on,” she says, grasping Peggy’s wrist with a surprisingly strong grip and half-dragging her out the back door.

 

As soon as Peggy’s there, she wishes she’d come out earlier. It’s the purple crossover of evening to night, and the wind teases her curls, pulling them out of their place behind her ears. Dottie’s hair is likewise moving in the breeze, her blonde curls tighter than Peggy’s, and bouncing.

“Isn’t it pretty?” she asks, stretching her neck out into the breeze. She runs her lacquered nails over the balcony and settles herself on the back steps, and Peggy notes that even her casual sitting looks, in a way, like a crouch. She thinks that there must be stories behind the new girl, and, in the same breath, realizes that she wants to be the one to find them out.

So maybe there’s a little manipulation involved when Peggy decides to sit next to Dottie on the stairs. “How are you finding Griffith?” she asks. Dottie grins.

“Seems like one big happy family,” she laughs. “But I won't be here long.”

“Really?”

“Just for the remainder of this academic year.”

“Why are you leaving so soon?”

“Other places to go, I suppose,” Dottie says loftily. Then she nudges Peggy’s shoulder. “You’re new here too, aren’t you?”

The small touch makes Peggy feel strange. For a moment, right as Dottie’s shoulder brushed hers, there was the same feeling in her skin as the time she had forced two repelling magnets to touch. That tiny resistance, that tiny tremor. She hesitates a moment before replying.

“Yes. I came here from Secondary School of Rothbury.”

“Ooooh,” says Dottie. “S, S, R. Same initials as the Soviet Union, just minus the U.”

“Just a coincidence, I promise” Peggy laughs. “But you’re right. I transferred here as an exchange student and…” she trails off. “I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but I knew I wanted to stay here. I never fit in at S.S.R. -- the school was very male-dominated and people were, frankly, very sexist to me.”

“That’s terrible,” sympathizes Dottie, shaking her head. “But things are better now, aren’t they? Do you miss your friends?”

Peggy nods. “Yes. I had friends, but they all are now... very far away.” She looks up into the night sky and closes her eyes for a moment, catching her breath and not letting herself become emotional. “One of them, actually, died.”

Why the hell is she telling Dottie this? _Peggy, what are you doing?_ she chides herself internally. _Don’t spill all your secrets to strangers!_

But Dottie’s no stranger. Not really, anyway. As if reading Peggy’s mind, Dottie shifts a tad closer and whispers, “you can trust me,” in Peggy’s ear. It’s a strange gesture, definitely, but exactly -- and weirdly -- what Peggy needed to hear. She exhales, closes her eyes and inhales, trying to force back and relive the memories at the same time.

“He was... Well, more than a friend, I suppose. His name was Steven Rogers, but everyone in the grade called him Steve. We were… Well, we were a couple, I suppose.”

“What happened?”

“I,” Peggy shakes her head. “A freak accident, really. Driving home from a party. Time of death around 11 PM, they said. He was… he was hit by a drunk driver. It was winter; as soon as the car hit him, his car spun across the ice on the road -- it was too dark to see -- and,” she bites the inside of her bottom lip and stops abruptly.

“What happened then?” Dottie’s eyes are wide and horrified.

“And it hit up against…. Against,” Peggy crushes her face as small as she can and covers her eyes with her hand. Her fingers become wet against her eyelashes, but no tears come down her cheeks. She’s done with sobbing; it won’t bring him home.

“It hit up against the snowbank they had shoveled off the road. It was a few days ago and had hardened all the way to ice, by then. They don’t know which impact killed him, the ice or the car, but he’s… he’s gone.”

“Oh, Peggy!”

“He was in a coma with no brain activity for two weeks. His parents made the choice, then, to have him… pass away. He.” She stops there. She want to say it. It’s building in her throat, large, and sharp. She pictures a square in her mind; lodged crossways, blocking her voice and airway. It’s the most painful thing of all.

“He what?” Dottie asks.

“They said he might have been hit by the car because he… he was calling me. Right as he died. He was trying to tell me something. With his phone. Not watching the road. If I had hung up -- if I’d known he was driving, I-”

She shakes her head. “He was asking me on a date. Our first date. I got him killed.”

“Peggy?!” comes a shrill half-shout from inside the house, interrupting Dottie’s horrified reaction. As if a spell’s been broken, Peggy blinks, shifts, and turns to see Angie stepping onto the porch. She’s a little wobbly, evidence of intoxication, but her eyes, when they lock onto Peggy’s, seem almost lucid. “What’re you doing out here?”

Dottie stands quickly. “Just talking with me,” she says quickly, brushing a hand down her skirt. Angie blinks dully and takes a step closer, her voice lacking crisp articulation. “You’re the new girl, right?”

“Yes, I am.” Dottie tilts her head and smiles, scanning Angie up and down. “You’re Angela Martinelli.”

“At your service,” Angie slurs, dipping into a theatrical bow. “Call me Angie.”

“Well, pleased to meet you, Angie.”

Angie shakes Dottie’s hand and turns and wanders back indoors. Peggy sighs in defeat. “I’ll go in and watch her,” she says, giving Dottie’s wrist a small clasp. “Can’t let her do anything foolish.”

Dottie smiles. “I love the way you talk,” she tells Peggy. “So sophisticated. And what a good friend you are, to look after her. But I’m sure she can take care of herself.”

Peggy looks at the ground and pushes a brown curl behind her ear. “I keep losing the people close to me,” she says. “I can’t let Angie be one.”

Without saying another word, she turns and vanishes back into the house, searching for Angie’s lithe, skirt-clad form amongst the partygoers. She finally spots her in the corner, a cup in her hand, standing close to Daniel Sousa, an 11th-grader at Griffith’s partner all-boys school with a permanently unusable leg. A horror accident on the soccer field had left him unable to play ever again. Peggy was surprised to see him at the party; he’d seemed studious and calm. Then again, she was surprised to see herself at the party.  _ Maybe that makes two of us _ , she thinks, making her way over to Daniel and Angie. 

“How are you?” she asks, with nothing better to do. Daniel places down his crutch and shakes her hand. “Very well, thank you. And you?”

“Fine.” Peggy smiles tightly and then turns her attention to Angie. “You’re drunk,” she tell her, in no uncertain terms. “You need to lie down, now.”

“Shut up, English.” Angie waves her hand vaguely around her face. “It’s my party and I can cry if I want to.”

“Nobody’s going to be crying tonight,” Peggy mutters in response, shaking her head and taking Angie by the arm. She begins to drag her friend’s barely resisting form towards the stairs. Daniel shoots a concerned look after them, but says nothing.

“Alright,” Peggy whispers comfortingly into Angie’s ear as they approach the bottom step. Angie begins to mutter quietly and Peggy starts to get anxious. Then she realizes it’s butchered Shakespeare -- they’re reading _Othello_ in English.

“Come on now,” Peggy urges, helping Angie up the first step. “Hold on to the banister, she instructs, placing her hand over Angie’s and lifting it to the wooden banister. “Now, the next step.”

Angie seems to find her feet again and kicks off her high heels. “God, I’m stupid,” she mutters, taking the next two steps on her own.

“That’s the only lucid thing you’ve said in a while,” Peggy replies, amused. She hovers behind Angie, who seems to be able to manage the stairs now. They make their way up the stairs together, and Angie heads right for her bedroom, where she collapses against the door. Peggy doesn’t know if it’s her typical drama or her inebriation, but she goes over to her and helps her turn the doorknob anyway. “There we go. In here, Angie.”

Angie takes two steps and falls face-first onto her pillow. “God,” she shouts, a sound muffled immediately. “I am stupid!”

“You’re not stupid,” Peggy disagrees, closing the door gently behind her. “You’ve just had an… irresponsible night; that’s all.”

“Mom,” Angie mutters. “Mom friend.”

Peggy crosses to the bed and turns Angie over so she’s not speaking into her pillow. “Don’t suffocate yourself.”

“Oh, who would care if I did,” Angie groans.

Peggy sighs. “You’re always so dramatic.”

She starts pulling the covers out from under Angie, preparing to tuck her in. As she bends over, though, Angie’s eyes catch her attention. They’re locked onto Peggy’s, and bright. Their faces are close, not to mention they’re both on Angie’s bed behind a closed door. Angie’s mouth opens slightly. They could kiss. They could do anything.

Peggy shakes her head and tells Angie to roll over. Angie, apparently unaware of the romantic tension, shoves her face back into her pillow and groans, shifting to the side so Peggy can access more covers.

“Move over,” Peggy laughs. Angie flops sideways again. Giving up (Angie will not _not_ lie on top of the covers), Peggy folds them backwards over her on either side. “Sleep tight, Martinelli,” she whispers, planting a tiny kiss on Angie’s cheekbone. Angie, however is already asleep.

“Peggy?” comes an inquisitive voice from behind the door, coupled with three knocks. “Peggy, is Angie alright? I saw you taking her up the stairs.”

“She’s fine,” Peggy calls back, but not loudly, to not wake Angie back up (though really, her friend seems out like a light). She crosses back to the door and opens it, revealing Dottie’s curious face.

“Oh, that’s good,” Dottie sighs, looking relieved. “I’d hate for something to happen to her.”

“So would I,” Peggy agrees, stepping out of Angie’s bedroom and closing the door behind her. “Do you think we can go home?” she asks.

“This is Angie’s party, and she’s asleep,” Dottie points out.

Peggy frowns. “Honestly, it’s getting late.”

“It’s not even midnight, Peggy!”

“Oh lord.” Peggy is really not prepared for this. She places a hand backwards on the bridge of her nose. What kind of hellish world includes the words ‘not even’ and ‘midnight’ in the same sentence? “What time is it, then?”

Dottie, who’s not wearing a watch (Peggy notices that she’s wearing long sleeves, though it’s early autumn and still quite warm), scans the room. She spots an analogue clock on the wall adjacent to the wall Angie’s room is behind. “10:04.”

“Oh _my_.”

“Why? Did your parents set a curfew?” Dottie asks.

“I told them I’d be spending the night at Angie’s,” Peggy sighs. “I thought people would leave and it would just be the two of us.”

Dottie looks very amused. “From what I know, Pegs, that’s never the case.”

Dottie is acting very familiar, though they’ve only just met. Peggy idly wonders if she’s had a stronger drink than the half-a-wineglass she’d had earlier in the party, but, looking at her eyes, decides probably not.

“Have you been to many parties?”

“This is my first one.”

“Mine, too.”

“I can tell.”

Peggy laughs and Dottie joins in.

A boy pokes his head above the banister. It’s Jason Wilkes, a certified genius and the smartest boy peggy knows. She’s known two geniuses in her time, the other being Howard Stark, a jackass of a boy but a loyal friend she knew when she lived in Great Britain. Jason only favorably compares to him.

“Hey, Peggy,” he says, smiling. The smile quickly dies, however. “I think Evelyn’s passed out downstairs. She also vomited. Do you know if Angie has any bleach? For the carpet.”

Peggy sighs and plops her face into her hands. Why this.

“Check under the sink,” Dottie suggests. “That’s where most people keep it.”

Jason shakes his head. “Nothing there.”

“I’m sorry, Jason, but I’ve no idea,” Peggy sighs. “It could be anywhere. Did you try the laundry room?”

Jason shakes his head. “Good idea. Where is that?”

“Probably in the basement.”

“Thanks, Peggy!”

He turns and heads back downstairs. Dottie turns to Peggy. “You’re quite the responsible friend, aren’t you?” she asks.

Peggy shrugs. “Someone has to be.”

Dottie laughs and turns back to Angie’s room, growing thoughtful. “I do hope she’s alright.”

“She will be.” As long as nobody goes into the room where she’s defenseless and asleep. “I’m going to stay here and watch her, just to make sure. And, of course, to make sure nobody gets romantic in any of the other bedrooms.”

Dottie laughs. “Let’s hope not. I’ll stay with you.”

“That’s nice of you, Dottie.”

“Someone has to be. Nice, that is.” She stumbles over repeating Peggy’s quote. “Damn!”

Peggy chuckles. “Good try, there.” She notices Dottie’s hands are twitching. “Are you nervous?”

Dottie’s hands still and surprise flits across her face. “Me? No. Why would I be? I’ve just made a new friend.” She tilts her head. “We are friends, right?”

“Of course.” Peggy bumps Dottie back with her shoulder and the repelling-magnet prickle happens again, but weaker. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what?”

“That weird feeling.” She bumps Dottie again, but nothing happens. “There _was_ this strange sensation for a moment.”

“Oooh, strange sensation?” Dottie teases. “Are you flirting with me?”

Peggy laughs and shakes her head quickly. “No. It just felt sort of like when you touch something metal when it’s cold? That snap feeling, the electrical shock pushing your finger and the metal object apart. Or like two magnets when...”

She stops talking. Dottie is giving her a very amused, flirtatious look that grows bigger the longer she speaks. “Are _you_ flirting with _me_?” Peggy asks.

Dottie’s laugh is high-pitched and silvery. “Not at all. Hey, want me to get you some food downstairs?”

“That sounds wonderful.” Peggy hasn’t eaten yet, and it’s almost 10:15, if the hallway clock is accurate. “I’d love some pizza. It’s really the only thing America does well.”

“Agreed.”

Dottie tosses Peggy another smile over her shoulder and traipses downstairs. Peggy watches her go, curiously. Then she tiptoes to Angie’s room and cracks the door.

Angie looks faintly distressed in her sleep, as if she’s having unpleasant dreams, but her breathing is deep and even. Her fingers are clasped in a fist around a clump of blankets and Peggy notices they’re painted in a repeating pattern of pink, yellow, and light blue. The colors are chipping off, so each nail is only about half-colored, and it looks like Angie’s put a sparkly topcoat on top of the chipping paint.

It’s just something she does. Peggy remembers one of their slumber parties when she had done Peggy’s nails. She’d painted them with dark red matte lacquer and then torn off part of it. Then she’d put clear topcoat over the purposeful chipping. Peggy had asked her why, as it seemed like a fairly poor fashion choice, and Angie had shrugged and said it was unique.

 _That’s Angie for you_ , Peggy thinks. _She doesn’t care if she’s weird. She relishes it, in fact._

She continues to watch her friend, protectively. Angie is exuberant and bubbly but also, Peggy thinks, somewhat fragile. Not weak, but fragile. In Peggy’s mind, there’s a difference; fragile people can be broken by only a few things that destroy them all the way. Those people can go through their entire life avoiding situations that would break them, but weak people are broken by everything. When Angie breaks, Peggy’s there to pick her back up. And when Peggy breaks, she knows Angie will be there for her, too. Like Steve was.

_Don’t think of Steve._

She takes a step backward, out of Angie’s room, and closes the door behind her. She hears Dottie coming up the stairs and puts on a smile.

“Pizza’s ready,” Dottie carols in a sing-song voice, holding the box out to Peggy. “Is pepperoni alright? It’s my favorite.”

“Of course. It’s my favorite, too,” Peggy answers.

Dottie flips open the box and rests it on the landing at the top of the stairs. She turns and puts her feet on the second-to-top step. Peggy drops down next to her, on the other side of the box, and pulls herself off a slice. They eat next to each other, the music still going strong downstairs. “It’s really loud,” Dottie comments as she munches.

“No shit, Sherlock,” Peggy snarks with her mouth full. A small glob of pizza sauce falls out of her mouth and lands on the stairs next to her. “Sorry.”

Dottie raises her eyebrows but makes no comment. She takes another bite of pizza, almost finished with her slice. “God, America is great. I thought it was a country like any other, but a… friend convinced me otherwise. And now, here I am.”

“You’re not from here?”

“I’m Russian. Or I was.”

“Russian?” Peggy’s a bit of a history buff, but even if she weren’t, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Russia and the U.S. have rarely gotten along. “How did you end up here?”

“I could ask you the same question, Peggy!”

“Brexit.”

Dottie throws her head back and laughs in sudden understanding. “I see.”

“My family was pretty much done with those politics. And the place reminded me of Steve, so… I -- we -- figured it was time for a change. Charlie wasn’t too happy about that; he’d wanted to join the British Army, but what can you do? Anyway,” she shifts, “what was Russia like?”

Dottie blinks for a moment. “Cold. Cold like ice, and white and blue. But alive, too, in a way that most people wouldn’t think of it. It’s not locked in ice; it’s not a glacier. It’s a country like any other, but very different from here. Still, the same types of people exist in both places. I don’t think we’re ever so different as people believe. We all want the same things, at our core.”

“And what would those things be?”

“Power.”

Seeing Peggy’s slightly taken-aback expression, she backtracks. “And wealth, and love, and acceptance, of course.”

Peggy nods. “So did you like it there, in Russia?”

Dottie shakes her head. “No.”

She takes another slice of pizza and she and Peggy continue to eat, listening to the music and the sounds of the party downstairs.

“So it was unpleasant?"

Dottie gives an odd half-smile. "It was cold. In every way."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter a young thief in a place far away.

**Russia, circa 2009**

Eight-year-old Ida Emke crosses to the window and stares at the snow outside. Clutched in her hand is a piece of bread, part of a loaf she’s managed to steal last night. She’ll save it for when she’s hungrier.

She and the girls have just eaten dinner, and, when nobody was looking, she’d taken it with her, tucked under her nightgown.

To do such a thing was dangerous. The girls only have so much time to eat and their portions are very limited. It’s all very calculated; the girls are given just enough food to keep them alive and healthy, if thin, but never enough to fill them. The constant hunger irritates them, makes them more willing to bicker and fight. Sometimes, extra food is placed into the center of the girls’ room, to spark combat between them.

Ida fingers a scar on her arm from that most recent time. She’d launched herself into the fray with the others but had only ended up with a tiny fragment of the lettuce and an arm covered in blood.

Ida is tall for her age, but not exactly brawny. Still, the instructors were impressed with any girl that managed to get any. Ida didn’t even like lettuce all that much (few girls her age did), but she still couldn’t stand to see anyone else get it. And besides, she was hungry. Nobody had gotten the majority of the lettuce; in fact, most of it was wasted in the scuffle.

Food is a high-stakes game for the girls. So if Ida were caught stealing the bread from dinner, her punishment would be severe.

“Bedtime,” comes a voice over the intercom. “Bedtime. Bedtime.”

It’s robotic, as it always is. The girls never have much time to socialize after dinner. Ida makes her way to her cot and tucks herself under the covers, hiding the bread between the bottom of her pillow and its pillowcase. Madame G. begins locking the girls in, one by one, cuffing each one’s left arm to their headboards. Nobody resists, because nobody ever has.

Ida’s cot is next to Anya’s, another girl her age. She’s fairly weak, not even leaping into the occasional food fight. Ida doesn’t know what kindness is -- it was never defined for her -- but a word she does know is pity.

She pities Anya.

 

“Lights-out,” comes the robotic voice as soon as Madame G. locks the door behind her on her way out. “Lights-out. Lights-out.”

The lights turn off and everything is immediately plunged into complete darkness. Small exhales and rustles sweep throughout the room as the girls do their best to make themselves comfortable. Ida lies on her back and stares at the ceiling. She can’t sleep in any other position; the cuff prevents that, but she shifts herself sideways so she’s lying somewhat diagonally across her bed. Still, in spite of her changing positions, the bread seems to burn a hole through her pillow and into the back of her mind. What if she’s caught? Should she just eat it now?

Slowly, she starts to drop off into a restless sleep. Her dreams are vague and muted. Colorful splashes and dark flashes of pits and falling and falling.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that kicking 20 teenagers out of a party isn't the hardest thing Angie's ever done.

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie and Peggy demolish the pizza box together. It’s Pizza Hut, Peggy’s greasy, guilty pleasure, and the two girls enjoy it immensely. The party downstairs is going strong, but Peggy is tired, so she decides to see if Angie’s a bit more sober, after about 45 minutes of sleep.

“I’m going to wake Angie,” she tells Dottie, standing.

Dottie stands, too. “I’ll come with you.”

Peggy smiles and crosses the landing to Angie’s door. She opens it to reveal Angie sprawled across her bed even more violently, her face etched in a tiny scowl.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” Peggy sing-songs, stepping over and shaking Angie’s shoulder gently. “Your prince is here.”

Angie groans loudly and half-raises her head. Through bleary eyes she takes in Peggy’s gently smile and Dottie hovering behind her shoulder. She hears the music still booming from downstairs.

Then she faces her pillow and shoves her face into it. “I refuse. I  _ refuse _ to wake up.”

“You’re already awake, Angie.”

“But at what cost?”

“That’s a Tumblr post,” Dottie chimes in.

“Yeah, I can’t make my own jokes,” comes Angie’s muffled voice. “I just steal the internet’s. Helps me seem funnier than I am.”

“You are funny, Angie,” Peggy admonishes. “Come on. Tell everyone downstairs it’s time to leave.”

Angie groans again, even louder. “I’m hungover already and can’t think straight. And you want me to not only leave this bed but go downstairs and kick twenty people out of my house? Why don’t you do it?”

She shoves her face back into the pillow. “My head hurts.”

Dottie leaves the room and returns with a glass of water. “Hangovers are really just dehydration. Here.”

Angie flails her arm out in the vague direction of the cup. Dottie places it in her hand.

Angie scoots herself up into a sitting position. “Ugh.” She takes a sip and then gulps down the glass. “Fine. I’ll kick them out. I won’t be able to go sleep easy with everyone around, either.”

She stands, wobbles, and clutches onto Peggy. Dottie helpfully takes her other arm and they make their way out of the room and downstairs. “I can take the stairs myself,” Angie says, pushing Peggy and Dottie slightly away from her. She crinkles her nose and grasps onto the banister.

Sure enough, she is able to make her way downstairs. She inhales big and Peggy, knowing what’s coming, places her hands over her ears.

“EVERYBODY GET OUT!” Angie yells. Dottie half-expects it to rattle the pictures on the walls. Angie slams her hands down on the banister and leans forward. “I MEAN IT! THE PARTY’S OVER, MOTHERFUCKERS!”

The yell has energized her. She half-swings herself around the banister and lands sloppily on the floor. “TURN OFF THE MUSIC AND GET THE HELL OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

Someone turns off the music, more out of fear than anything else. 

Peggy knew Angie could yell. She looks over at Dottie, who looks as if a bomb’s just exploded in her face.

“Don’t worry, English,” Angie calls back, offhand, her voice suddenly normal. “This is how I close out every house party. They know me.” She turns back and goes back to yelling without any apparent extra effort. “GET OUT OF THE MCFUCKING HOUSE.”

Jason Wilkes, certainly tipsy if not drunk, is the first to leave. He leaves the bottle he brought in the kitchen, but Angie doesn’t seem to care. Daniel Sousa, seeming sober and regretting that choice, follows. Other students Peggy doesn’t know as well also exit in an unsteady, wobbly stream. The house empties surprisingly quickly.

“I’ll get the rest of them,” Angie sighs. “You two stay here.”

She walks across her floor and into her kitchen, pulling out Evelyn, who can barely stand, and Carol. “That’s the last of ‘em,” she shouts back to Dottie and Peggy, before urging them out the door.

“You’re sure?”

A groan comes from Angie’s computer room, where her family’s desktop is kept. “Ah, shit,” Angie swears.

She goes in and pulls out Lorraine, dragging her by the shoulders. She helps her gets her to her feet, pushes her forwards across the room, and sends her out the door with the rest with a gentle but efficient shove.

“Angie, do you do this often?” Dottie seems concerned.

“Not  _ that _ often.”

“So just once a week, then?” Peggy asks, amused.

“More like once a  _ month _ . Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrecked forever. Nothing yet, anyway.”

She starts to pull her coffee table, which had been shoved off into a corner, back to where it belongs, between the couch and the TV, which had been shoved into a different corner for its protection. “A little help?”

Peggy and Dottie quickly step over to her and take the other end. They maneuver it back to its proper place.

Dottie picks up some cups on the ground. “Do you have a garbage bag?”

“Under the kitchen sink. Don’t worry about it, though. I’ll do the rest of the cleaning tomorrow.”

There’s a bit of an awkward pause. Peggy’s spending the night with Angie, but Dottie hasn’t been invited.

“I’m happy to do it anyway,” Dottie replies, ignoring the possible awkwardness.

“Don’t worry about it,” Angie repeats. “Really. You’re free to go.”

Dottie nods and takes two cups to Angie’s kitchen garbage can but doesn’t come back with a bag. “I’ll… be going, then?”

“Unless you want to stay the night, of course,” Angie says, as if it’s a given.

Dottie raises her eyebrows. “That’s a real invitation?”

“’Course. What’re you, a stranger?”

“Well, until now, y-” Dottie starts to point out.

“C’mon. Stay.”

“Well, then… yes!” Dottie grins and clasps her hands together. “A real slumber party. I’m so excited!”

“It’s almost eleven,” Peggy notifies everyone else. “Should we be sleeping?”

“Eleven? Nah. Damn,” Angie looks around at her party-free house, “this thing ended early.”

“This is  _ early _ ?!” Peggy nearly shrieks in disbelief.

Angie gives her a well-duh expression that says far more than words. “Jesus, Carter. I’ve got to get you to go out to more of these.”

“No, you most certainly do  _ not _ .”

Dottie suppresses a laugh. “Angie, do you have an available shower? And could I borrow some clothes to sleep in?”

“Might be a little small for you. What are you, five-seven?”

Dottie shrugs. “Ish.”

“Well,” Peggy says, “I’m only a little shorter than you, Dottie, and I brought a change of clothes. So you can borrow my extra clothes and I can borrow Angie’s, since they’re more likely to fit me than you.”

Angie’s still-addled brain tries to make sense of it. Dottie’s eyes sparkle. “Very logical, Pegs.”

Peggy gives a tiny shrug, like ‘no, not really.’ “I left my clothes in a bag by the coatrack,” she says, gesturing to where it’s sitting, tipped over but looking clean-enough.

Dottie crosses to it, lifts it, and peers inside. “This is wonderfully kind of you, Peggy!” She pulls out the change of clothes, and asks Angie where she should shower.

“There’s a bathroom in my room,” Angie tells her, pointing upstairs. “Tell me if we’re out of conditioner again.”

“Thank you. I’ll be right back down. You’re sure you don’t want me to further clean up?”

“Positive. Thanks, though, Dot.”

Dottie smiles at Angie and goes upstairs. In a few moments, the sounds of water flowing through pipes is heard faintly.

“So,” Peggy shifts closer to Angie, who’s looking a bit wobbly, “are you feeling okay?”

“I get way too drunk and do stupid shit,” Angie replies, sounding resigned but not ashamed by the fact.

“Well, you can always change.”

“Like I have to change?”

“I thought you said-”

“Oh, whatever, English.” Angie grins. “If you want to take a shower, there’s another one in the master bedroom.”

“Your parents’ room?”

“Yeah, but they’re not home,  _ of course _ . I’ll go shower after whichever of you is finished. I sure as hell don’t want to smell like whatever this party was when my parents get back.”

“It’s your house. You shower first. And when do they get back, exactly?”

“Tomorrow afternoon. Business retreat-thing. I wasn’t really listening.”

“Oh, Angie.”

“I like myself just the way I am, English. No criticism here. Unless you’re talking about fathead men. Then, criticism  _ allowed _ .”

Peggy laughs. “If you see any ‘fathead men,’ I’ll punch them for you.”

“Aw, thanks.”

Angie yawns and rests her head on Peggy’s shoulder for half-a-beat. “I’m exhausted. I’m gonna shower and sleep.”

She picks herself up and goes upstairs. Peggy, alone downstairs, watches her go, thinking.

Then she shrugs to herself and decides to sink-shower and change into her pajamas, going into the only bathroom on the ground floor.

 

*  *  *

Angie takes luxurious showers, so Peggy, in red and white co-ordinated pajamas and Dottie in the clothes she borrowed from Peggy, end up in Angie’s room, waiting for her to finish. Peggy combs her damp hair, which is curling irregularly around her head. Dottie’s hair is straight after the water, falling darker across her shoulders and leaving patches of water on her t-shirt. “Is she… singing?” Dottie asks, after a while of hearing faint vocal notes drift in from the next room. 

Peggy shrugs. “Most likely.” She starts to hum along, amused. “Angie’s not in the business of giving shits about what people think of her.”

“Admirable.”

“To be sure.”

“Oh, I love how you talk. I've never met someone British before.”

Peggy raises her eyebrows. “Thanks.”

 

The singing stops, as does the water. In a few moments, Angie bangs her hand several times on her bedroom door. “I forgot my pajamas. A little help?”

Peggy gives an unsurprised smile and pulls them and some underwear out of her bureau drawer. “Crack the door.”

Angie does and pulls them from her hand. “Thanks.” 

In a few moments, she comes inside, looking suddenly dead-tired. “I’m crashing,” she says to nobody in particular, and careens headfirst onto her bed.

Peggy sighs and shrugs at Dottie. She stands and moves to Angie’s closet, fiddling with the broken doorknob and then rooting around inside for a sleeping bag. She finds one and throws it to Dottie before leaving Angie’s room wordlessly to get a blanket for herself.

Dottie unwraps the sleeping bag (with some difficulty) and drops it on the floor next to Ange’s bed. She tucks herself inside it, feeling uncomfortable. There’s no place to put her left arm, no headboard to attach herself to. She places it at her side, uncomfortable, and then pulls it right out again, stretching it out by her ear and resting her head on it.

When Peggy comes back in with a blanket and a pillow, Dottie feigns sleep. Peggy lies down on the other side of Angie’s bed and closes her eyes.

 

After a while, when the other girls are asleep, Dottie slides out of her sleeping bag and hovers over Angie and Peggy for a few moments. The night around her is peaceful, quiet, suburban and affluent. Unfamiliar, but timeless at the same time.

Dottie watches as Angie’s curtains blow faintly from the air conditioning in the room. She looks at the dark pink shadows stretching up and down the walls. She looks at Peggy’s sleeping face, looking so, so vulnerable.

Then she climbs back into the bag and, after two hours of restless turning, finally falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All feedback is welcome. Thank you for reading this far. <33


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some girls are nurtured into strong, levelheaded, good-hearted women, while others are trained to be as cold as snow.

**Russia, circa 2009**

The sun is streaming through the window, its cold light falling dully on the metal bars that make up Ida’s cot. Hers is one of a room crowded with small cots made of metal bars with cuffs attached and white sheets and mattresses thin as paper. Every girl feels the bite of the metal scaffolding of the base of the bed underneath the mattresses and sheets. Every girl sleeps cuffed to the bed, on her back under covers, when she sleeps at all.

Ida wakes. It’s another cold morning, dull in its predictability. Madame G. is uncuffing the girls, getting them up for the day, going row by row, efficiently. She moves to Anya and uncuffs her. She frees Ida as well before moving on to the other girls, not looking back.

Ida flips over onto her stomach and reaches under her pillow. She half-panics for a fraction of a second until the tips of her fingers brush the texture of the bread.

She eyes Madame G. She’s far away, still unlocking the other girls.

She pulls the bread out from under her pillow and looks toward Anya. Then, hesitantly, she breaks a piece of it off and holds it out to her.

Anya’s eyes widen. She takes it with hesitant fingers, her eyes flicking up to Ida’s and back down to the bread.

The girls eat, smiling at each other. The bread is slightly stale but delicious, tasting not only of wheat but of secrets and victory and something else, something like friendship.

Then it’s gone. The girls get to their feet, their smiles disappearing.

 

Madame G. leads the girls to breakfast. There is no bread today, but there is something that looks like a combination of oatmeal and porridge.

It tastes like cold, but not even a good, clean cold. More of the slimy type, the type that gives you pneumonia. Still, the girls eat.

Madame G. stands at the front of the sterile, white hall, watching her pupils. Then she stands.

Every girl has her eyes on Madame G. as she smiles coldly over them.

“Today,” she says without preamble, her voice cold, “We will have a sparring match.”

At the announcement, surprise runs through the crowd somehow without a noise. A small shift of a shirt, an extra blink, maybe the twitch of a cheek.

Ida has never been selected for sparring. She hopes this will not be her first time.

“Now,” Madame G. claps her hands, “Get yourselves changed. Then, outside.”

The girls spoon the last of their gruel into their mouths and stand, more or less in unison. It’s a clear cue that breakfast is over.

Back to the room they go. Clothes are folded on their beds; a white tank top and small, black, athletic shorts. Even though it’s winter. Even though they could freeze.

Each girl’s self-consciousness about her body has been trained out of her, so they all both strip and dress efficiently. It’s just another duty to complete.

Another teacher taps twice on the outside of the door, hurrying up the girls. They quickly file more or less into a line. Ida fixes her braids. Anya fixes hers. They’re separated by about five people as they walk outside, but Ida half-wishes they were together.

Then she shoves the thought out of her mind. Thoughts like that are pointless.

The girls walk through the halls of the Academy, a facility about three blocks square, and cold and grey as the winter forest around it. There’s some heating in the buildings, but the girls exist in cold. They train outside in shorts and tank tops, learning magic, learning to fight.

 

Madame G. leads the girls outside, where they take their places around the raised white floor framed by pine trees. It’s time.

 

Madame G. calls the names to the girls, all watching her with faces filled with cloaked apprehension. “Ida Emke,” she says, her voice crisp. “Anya Kovalevsky.”

Ida knows that someone must have seen the bread. A hidden camera, perhaps. Or maybe Madame G. had seen. And this is their punishment, for sharing the food.

In her mind, she drops her head down to her chest and clutches her arms around herself, letting herself be sad. Then she turns and runs away into the forest, breaking through the enchanted fence to freedom.

While her mind’s away, her body knows what to do. Before she can think about it, her legs carry her forward onto the fighting floor.

 

Anya does likewise, from the other side. They each pull up magical guards, trying for some protection. They stare into each other’s eyes. There’s not much emotion there; perhaps a bit of regret on each girl’s side, but everything must be hidden.

Madame G. indicates for them to start with a crisp nod. They begin, letting all pity and all mutual friendship break.

Every spar starts with observation. So they circle each other for a moment, each with a wall of magic in front of them, providing protection from any spells the other might throw.

However, a wall of what looks like a combination of smoke and glitter won’t block a good right hook. Ida lunges forward suddenly, aiming right for Anya’s face.

It’s rare but not unheard of for magic sparrers to get physical. Madame G. makes a mental note of Ida’s actions, analyzing.

Anya blocks the punch and twists to the side, taken by surprise. As she defends herself with her arms, her wall of magic falls. Ida seizes the moment and catches onto the air around her, sending it in a sudden, powerful gust of wind towards Anya.

It catches her and bowls her over onto her back. Ida pushes again. Anya, on the ground, throws her arms out to her sides as Ida advances. The wind does her bidding, too, racing back towards Ida and sending her skidding frantically backwards.

Ida spins, keeping her footing. She throws her arm sideways and a branch from one of the pine trees darts into her hand. With another flick, she shoots it like a spear at Anya, who blocks it and sends it whirling back at twice the speed towards Ida.

Ida simply sidesteps, not seeing the point in using extra magic. She’s flushed from what she’s used so far and feeling as powerful as a goddess. But inside, she knows that something’s somehow wrong with the euphoric feeling.

She knows it’s dangerous. She’s seen sparring matches before, and she knows that if she pushes too far into the feeling, she’ll crack.

Anya steals Ida’s idea and breaks off two pine branches with her mind, shooting them both at Ida, who dodges. Just when Anya thinks Ida won’t use any more magic in retaliation, Ida stomps her foot.

Anya is shot upward into the air, catapulted by the fight floor which has turned into a spring. The move sends more energy into all of Ida’s limbs, making them tremble. The more power she uses, the more, it seems, she has.

Madame G. watches like a hawk, observing how the girls play off each other and discover each other’s weaknesses. She internally predicts that Ida, who is taking her time and playing her cards, will end Anya, who is relying on being more magically powerful. Brute force is, in her mind, a quick way to a downfall. But she’s been proven wrong before.

Anya catches onto the wind around her, slowing her fall. Then she decides to move herself in the air above Ida, to try and land on top her.

She pretends to start falling backward but then turns sideways and falls on a course set straight for Ida.

Ida, however, sees it coming and jumps, using her magic to lend her extra spring. She catches onto Anya’s leg and yanks her savagely down, twisting her around and pinning her arms behind her so they’re trapped and useless.

Anya’s eyes are glittering strangely. Her flight, her pine branches, her magic shield have all enthused her, and she feels the most powerful she’s ever felt.

She throws herself downward violently and sends out a shockwave of magic, screaming as she does so. Ida immediately is thrown backward by the force, off the floor altogether, stopping short when she hits a tree. Anya turns with her bright eyes to her, seeing victory close. She pulls on the wind, lifting Ida into the air like a rag doll.

Ida purposefully doesn’t fight back. Anya is practically glowing with the ecstasy and power flowing through her, but Ida knows this happens to sparrers right before they crack. She’s banking on Anya being about to crack but being too drunk on power to notice.

Anya throws Ida back to the ground. Ida lands and rolls. Anya lifts her up again and slams her down. It hurts this time; the floor is hard, cold. Anya lifts her up one more time, higher and higher into the air. The Red Room starts to shrink, and Ida can see outside its walls. More trees, and cold, and forests.

Her rising pace suddenly falters and she hears Anya give a sharp cry. She lifts one more foot up and stops. Below her, Anya is pressing her hands to her head and swaying. Ida can’t see from this high up, but she’d bet anything she owns – though it’s next to nothing -- that there’s a black crack somewhere on her.

She shatters the spell around her and drops to the ground like a stone, only stopping when she’s a few feet off the ground. She lets herself down and sprints straight for Anya.

She stops when she’s a few half-steps away from her. On her right leg, near the knee, a tiny, black, oily crack has formed, lancing across her skin and screaming wrong, _wrong_ , unnatural. Anya’s in pain; she’s moving from side to side with her hands clamped around her temples. Ida sees her weakness and takes her chance.

She lunges forward and wraps her arms around Anya, pinning her again.

Anya starts to whisper, reaching a hand down and trying to touch the crack in her skin. “It wants me to save you. It’s in my thoughts. It’s in my thoughts. It _is_ my thoughts. It wants me to save you. I want to save you.”

Ida changes her position to a headlock. Anya stops muttering; the position closes her airway. She barely struggles, now. Ida looks at Madame G., awaiting her instruction.

Madame G. nods. Ida doesn’t hesitate; she wrenches her arms and snaps Anya’s neck.


	5. Chapter 5

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie is the first girl to wake up. She watches the ceiling of Angie’s room, memorizing its faint texture and just-off-white color. She waits in her sleeping bag, on her back, for the other girls to wake up.

 

It doesn’t take long for Peggy to yawn and stretch, waking up in the stereotypical way people do in old Disney movies. First a yawn and then reaching their arms up in a V towards the sky. Dottie finds it cute in the way a child might view a mildly amusing plaything.

“Morning, Pegs!”

“Morning,” Peggy replies, scooting out of her blankets and walking over to Dottie. “Sleep well?”

“Very. I’ve never slept in a bag on the floor before.”

“Well you, my friend, haven’t lived,” Peggy says loftily. Then she laughs. “Do you want to go out and play a board game or something? Angie won’t be up for a while, and she’ll be cranky if we wake her now.” She pauses. “Or if we wake her, period.”

“Sounds good to me!” Dottie pulls herself out of her sleeping bag. 

The two girls head downstairs all the way into Angie’s basement, where her family keeps the board games and lots of books on white-painted shelves. 

“What do you want to play?”

Dottie looks around. Most of them are unfamiliar. She knows Monopoly, but she also knows she hates it.   
  
“How about this one? Clue?” She reaches up to it and pulls it out and down, handing it to Peggy. It has a dark green box with a rope and a gun on the side.

Peggy grins. “I love that one! Cluedo, right? Definitely one of my favorites. Which character do you want to be?”

Dottie looks bemused. “There are characters?”

“You’ve never played. Hm.” Peggy rests a finger on her chin. “Do you want to read through the instructions or try to figure it out as we go along? With a game like Cluedo -- Clue in America, I guess, the former might be preferable.”

Dottie nods. “I’ll skim them, and whatever I don’t get, you can help me with!” She smiles.

Peggy returns the gesture and deftly pulls the top off the box. “I like to be Professor Plum. The game says he’s a dude, but Professor is gender-neutral. So is this pawn.” She pulls it out and flicks it between her fingers.

Dottie’s scanning down the instructions. “I’ll be Miss Scarlett,” she says, smiling at the character’s description. “Femme fatale.”

“Nice,” Peggy says. She pulls out the board and the cards and starts setting the game up while Dottie finishes with the instructions. “Mind shuffling these piles?” she asks, handing Dottie the people, rooms, and murder weapons cards. Dottie shuffles them and hands them back to Peggy, who takes a middle card off each one and slides them into the orange envelope. “And we’re ready to go,” she announces, after putting the pawns in their proper spots.

Dottie places down the instructions. “Excellent!”

She rolls the the die and goes four steps towards the ballroom. Peggy rolls a two and heads towards the conservatory. The game begins.

 

Dottie has just guessed the murderer correctly (Colonel Mustard in the Dining Room with the Lead Pipe) when Angie, yawning, comes down the stairs.

“Toast for breakfast sound good?”

“Sounds lovely.”

The girls tromp back upstairs to where Angie’s already put in some bread. “How toasted do you like your bread, Dottie?”

“Oh, anything is fine!”

Angie shrugs. “Alright then.”

She goes to her refrigerator and pulls out some orange juice. “This look good?”

Peggy grins and takes it. “Sure!”

Angie pulls out a stick of butter, a jar of grape jam, and some peanut butter, somehow managing to carry two knives in addition to them. “Lessgo.”

Peggy puts napkins on three places on the table. Soon, the toast is ready.

“So, did you guys sleep well?” Angie asks, deftly spreading butter on her toast. She takes a bite. “Mph. Burned it again.”

“Very,” Dottie lies. “And I think the toast tastes fine.”

“I slept well, too,” Peggy says, spreading peanut butter on her bread.  “How about you?”

“Well, I slept until nine. Who killed Mr. Boddy in Clue?”

“Colonel Mustard.”

“That bastard, at it again? How dare he?!”

Peggy laughs.

“For the longest time,” Dottie chimes in, “I thought it was pronounced Col-oh-nell.”

Peggy laughs again. “So did I. It comes from French, actually.”

“Really? The only French word I know is ennui. As in ‘I’m consumed by ennui.’” Angie falls dramatically across the table. “Someone help.”

Peggy pulls her back to a sitting position. “Come on, now. You’ll get your hair in the butter.”

Dottie smiles and continues eating her toast, eyes flicking between Peggy and Angie as they continue to banter.

“So what if I get my hair in the butter? Shampoo exists!”

“But do you  _ want _ your hair in the butter, darling-”

“Oh, come on, Mom Friend!” Angie rolls her eyes.

“Better a mom friend than the childish one!” Peggy teases.

“Peggy.”

“What?”

“Peggy. That was  _ horrendous _ .”

“What was?”

“That comeback.” Angie shudders. “Oh my god.”

“Whaaaaat?”

“‘Better the mom friend than the childish one?’ Really?  _ Really? _ ” She scoffs. “Please.”

Peggy laughs and shakes her head. “Well, it’s true!”

“Truth or not,” Angie shudders again, “I’m gonna have a hard time un-hearing that one.”

“It wasn’t  _ that _ bad!”

“Yes, it was!”

“No, it wasn’t!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

This continues for a while.

 

Finally, Angie decides to get a win by purposefully placing actual butter in her hair, just to make a point. Peggy, who has nothing to say to that, just gives her a vaguely horrified look.

Then, all of a sudden, they both turn to Dottie, remembering she’s there. Dottie takes another bite of her toast and flicks her eyebrows up and down at them. “Well.”

Angie takes a strand of her hair and frowns at it. “I feel like Ramona Quimby cracking the egg on her head.”

“Your fault,” Peggy whispers out of the corner of her mouth.

“Hey!”

They almost start another circular joke-fight but remember just in time that Dottie’s there. 

“My parents want me back at my house at ten, so I should probably be going.” Dottie finishes her toast with a decisive bite. “This has been wonderful. Thank you, Angie!”

Angie grins and gets up to hug Dottie. Dottie stiffens for a moment but relaxes into the embrace. “Thanks,” she murmurs.

“Come again soon! I’ll definitely invite you.” Angie releases Dottie and winks. “Fun times, right?

“Thank you,” Dottie says again, half-laughing. Her smile soon fades. “I really should be going.”

“Bye!” calls Peggy as Dottie turns to leave. 

Angie waves at her cheerfully all the way until she’s out the door.


	6. Chapter 6

**Russia, circa 2009**

Neck broken, Anya drops to the ground like a bag of wet clothing, landing with a sickening thud that no living thing could make.

Her body sprawls on the ground, her neck horribly bent, still, too still. Ida can feel the image of the twisted, crumpled body burning itself onto the back of her eyes, but she’s too horrified to look away.

Madame G. looks pleasantly surprised, as if someone’s just given her a gift she didn’t know she wanted until she opened up the wrapping.

Ida steps away from Anya, her steps shaky. “Will she stay dead?” she asks, her voice small.

Madame G. indicates Anya with a jerk of her chin.

Ida turns back to the still body on the ground.

Only… only it isn’t a still body. Where Anya’s neck has been snapped is now bubbling with oily black fluid. With a grotesque cracking sound, Anya’s neck rights itself on her shoulders.

“You may go, girls,” Madame G. says, after making sure all the girls have seen what happened. Anya is struggling to get to her feet, somehow alive again.

“Go,” Madame G. says, more forcefully. “I will take care of this  _ thing _ .”

The girls turn, hesitantly, and begin to file back inside. Everyone avoids brushing up against Ida, a fact that she very much notices. But she bites her lip and says nothing.

Behind them, they hear Anya scream and the crackling of a fire. Every girl tries not to listen.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Obviously, cells only split to make highschoolers mad.

**United States, Present-Day**

It’s Monday morning before Peggy sees Dottie or Angie again. She gets to school early, at about 8:01, a good half-hour before school begins. Usually, students hang out in hallways or in the school library, and Dottie spots Angie and Peggy through the library’s window facing the hallway outside.

They appear to be deep in conversation, so, naturally, Dottie decides to interrupt.

“Hi,” she calls, re-shouldering her backpack as she walks in the door. Angie looks up and waves her over, brushing aside some papers. “Just catching up on science,” she explains. “Mitosis is for suckers.”

“Your cells are doing it right now,” Peggy points out.

“So? It’s for suckers. I’m a sucker.” Angie plops her head on her notes and lets out a whooshing sigh. “Why do cells even have to split? It’s stuuuuuupid.”

“Is it really?” 

“Yes.” Angie raises her head. “I mean, there you have a perfectly good cell, and what does it decide to do? Rip itself apart. I’m convinced they do it just to make highschoolers mad.”

“Angie, you’re never going to pass this if you don’t start being serious,” Peggy sighs. “The cell starts to divide because it stops being able to take in all the nutrients to sustain its large size. Small things are always easier to sustain than larger ones.”

“Science schmience. They divide. Done deal. Why do we need to learn about exactly  _ how _ it happens? Kinetochore? Kinet- _ oh, chore! _ ”

“Well, that’s one way to remember it,” Dottie says wryly.

“And microtubules? More like macro-headaches.” Angie runs a hand through her fluffy hair. “Centromere? Centro _ fear _ .  I fear this test with my whole heart.”

“Oh, Angie.”

“Isn’t this all so easy for you? Goddammit, English!” Angie groans. She shoves the papers towards Dottie, who’s standing next to the table. “Can  _ you _ make sense of this shit?”

“Shh,” Peggy admonishes Angie. “If any of the teachers hear us swearing, we’ll be in  _ massive _ trouble.”

“Maw-sive trubble,” Angie mimics. Peggy rolls her eyes. “Stop making fun of how I speak.”

“As you wish, English,” Angie snarks back. She turns to Dottie. “Well,  _ can _ you?”

“I have this test today the same as you do,” Dottie replies. “As long as you can separate Metaphase and Anaphase and remember that Telophase and Cytokinesis are the last stages and happen simultaneously, I think you’ll be alright.”

Angie shrugs and pulls her notebook back towards herself, opening to a seemingly random page. “What’s a chromosome?”

Dottie and Peggy groan.

*   *   *

“So, let me get this straight.” The three girls are walking up the stairs to the third-floor science hallway, Angie still trying to work out the difference between chromosomes and chromatin. “Chromosomes. You have 46 of them, 23 that are all paired, and they do shit.”

“Care to be more specific?” Dottie asks.

“No.”

“You’re hopeless, Angie,” Peggy sighs. Dottie notices that Peggy does a lot of sighing and wonders idly if she got that from Angie, for whom dramatic sighing appears to be second nature.

“Chromosomes contain supercoiled DNA. There are single and double chromosomes. Chromosome pairs, which are different than double chromosomes but can be made of double chromosomes, have the same genes but different DNA. The sister chromatids that make up double chromosomes are identical. Those sister chromatids that are ripped apart in Anaphase and become daughter chromosomes for the two cells formed in Telophase and Cytokinesis,” Peggy rattles off. “Got it?”

“Yes.” Angie says. Either she’s a fantastic actress or she actually understands, and Dottie doesn’t know what’s more miraculous.

Chromatin  _ is _ DNA, but all squiggly?” she asks Peggy. “It’s spaghetti-DNA?”

“Yes,” Peggy replies, relief showing in her voice. “Unwound DNA.”

“And it only exists in…”

“Metaphase, which is not even a part of mitosis. It’s pre-mitosis.”

“Metaphase: Like menopause, but worse!” Angie says grandly. Peggy tries hard to be unamused, but Dottie bursts into cackles. “And menopause -- I mean metaphase -- what, Peggy? It was an accident, I swear -- is in three stages: G1, S, and G2,” Angie finishes triumphantly. Dottie dispassionately claps.

“Exactly. Well done, Angie.” There’s a flickering smile at the edges of Peggy’s lips.

“ _ That’s _ patronizing. She’s patronizing,” Angie remarks to Dottie, as if Peggy isn’t there.

“I wanted to congratulate you!” Peggy’s slightly outraged.

Angie shrugs. “Still patronizing. It’s your tone of voice, you know.”

Peggy gives Dottie an exasperated look over the top of Angie’s head. Dottie smiles innocently.

“G1 is where 75% of growth happens, right?” Angie asks, calling Peggy’s attention back.

“No, that’s G2. G1 is where-”

“25% of growth happens. G2 is where 75% of growth happens.” Angie shakes her head. “I knew that.”

“Sure you did,” Peggy and Dottie say in unison. Angie gives them a mock-offended stare.

 

The warning bell rings, an indication that class starts in five minutes. “Pick up the pace, ladies,” Peggy sing-songs, pulling ahead of the other two girls and practically flying up the final fifteen steps onto the third floor.

“Damn you,” Angie hisses, stepping quickly to catch up. Dottie seems to glide past her, falling into step beside Peggy again.

Angie rolls her eyes and starts to jog. The girls informally race down the hallway until they all are forced to enter their respective classrooms. Peggy has Mr. Yauch, Angie has Mrs. Krzeminski, and Dottie has Mr. Li.

“Good luck,” Peggy calls to Angie and Dottie as she peels off, throwing them a wave. 

“Bet she won’t need any luck at all,” Angie mutters sideways as she stays out in the hallway, delaying the inevitable entrance to Mrs. Krzeminski classroom.

Dottie throws an arm around Angie’s shoulder. “You’ll be fine.”

“Thanks,” Angie replies, but her heart isn’t in it. Dottie wonders if, perhaps, her not-caring-about-grades attitude is really an act. Still, she fills her head with splitting cells instead of Angie’s personal problems as she takes her arm from Angie’s shoulders and enters Mr. Li’s classroom.


	8. Chapter 8

**Russia, circa 2009**

The girls train for the rest of the day. It’s cold and difficult, but every time they go out into the snow in nothing but tank tops and shorts, their ability to keep themselves warm grows. It’s nighttime now, though, when every girl is the coldest.

Ida, memories of Anya still drifting through her head, tries to sleep. The handcuff pulls on her wrist, chafing painfully. She turns over under covers and turns over again, but sleep stays far away.

Finally, finally, she falls into a dream.

 

The first thing she’s aware of is the cold. It’s pervasive, eating away at her. She looks down at her legs. They’re splotchy, pink-and-white, not frostbitten or numb, but soon to be. Just above her knees flutters the hem of a pleated red dress. With fingers shaking from cold and disbelief, she places her hands against it. Never in her life has she worn something so decadent, so unneeded, so bright. She digs her fingers into the fabric, catching her fingernails in the richness of the color, half-unable to believe it’s real. It’s unbelievably vivid against the snow and the colorless, lifeless, cold landscape she’s in.

She slides her chapped, cold fingers around and over the hem. The wind starts to blow around her, sending snowflakes across her vision. She shivers, feeling colder, and drops the edge of the skirt to wrap her arms around herself. Her straight blonde hair falls across her shoulders, out of its braids like it never is when she’s waking. The wind catches it and whips it in front of her face, mingling it with snow and the colors of the sky that bleed into the colors of the pale snow atop the trees.

The sun starts to set, the pale, icy blue being replaced by vivid streaks of orange and red. And because this is a dream, greens and blues and violets paint themselves against the clouds.

Ida raises her face upward to the sky, her dress tearing back and forth against her legs as the wind picks up. She somehow knows she’s got something to do in the forest, but she doesn’t know what it is.

Her dry fingers start to go numb at the tips. The cold is chilling every ounce of her, so she takes a shaky step forward, leaving her first footprint in the snow. It’s hard to walk; the wind blows the cold back against her over and over again, chilling her to the cores of her tiniest bones. But she knows she must, so she takes another step. And another. She’s stumbling along, in red, the only bright patch in the entire desolate winter forest. And every second, the red is choked more by the blowing snow, turning a washed-out pink from far away.

The sky grows colorless again, black this time. It’s already nightfall and all the glowing sunset colors have vanished. The stars in the sky are all white-silver except for a glowing red one. Ida somehow knows she has to follow that star, has to go to where it’s leading her.

But the cold has almost beaten her. Her skin is almost as pale as the snow now, her limbs sticks of ice dangling from her vibrant dress. Her fingernails have lost their pink and have turned dead grey. Her hair is tangled, whipped into knots by the winter wind. But she keeps going. She has to get to that star.

She stumbles around a snow-covered pile of rocks, suddenly feeling as if she’s being watched.

Then there’s a growl. A snow wolf lurches over from the other side of the biggest rock in the pile and climbs down towards Ida, making ominous noises deep in its throat. It walks slowly, deliberately towards her, as white as the flurries gusting violently around it.

It blocks her path. Ida manages another step. It growls again and moves menacingly towards her again. She takes another step and falls forward to her knees.

Her hands go forearm-deep into the white, icy powder. She can feel each crystal against her skin, against her arms, and the cold immediately seeps as water onto the knees of her dress. It’s so, so cold, a mockery of a soft bed-pillow. And she can’t fight it any longer. Cold-induced sleep is coming for her; she can feel it tugging her as if it’s looped a noose around her neck.

The wolf moves towards her. She blinks up at it slowly, defeatedly, half-kneeling, half-lying on the ground, her fingers and toes both completely numb by now. She imagines them frostbitten, blue, about to snap off. 

The wolf’s eyes are red as the dress, red as the star. She waits for its teeth around her neck, waits for blood to gush from the wound and spray the snow in patterns of droplets, waits for the pain and the instant end. She closes her eyes. 

Instead, she feels fur moving softly against her back. Her eyes snap open as warmth flows into her. The wolf has tucked itself around her, its huge paws next to her arms buried in snow. Its stomach fur lies against the back of her dress. Warmth emanates from the beast, as if the red in its eyes was really fire.

Ida exhales, a grey puff. The wolf wraps itself more snugly around her. Ida, trembling with disbelief and fear and cold, starts to gingerly relax into it. Wherever she touches the comforting bulk and fur of the animal, warmth pours over her skin.

She turns herself over and buries herself into the belly-fur of the wolf like sucking-pup, searching for more of the life-giving heat. The wolf makes a small, happy noise and relaxes into the snow, letting her get closer to it.

Ida realizes that she can’t tell where the fur ends and the snow begins; the animal is that integrated into the winter around it. She brushes her hands over the animal’s fur, as if she’s petting it like a dog. It makes a tiny growl and she stops the familiar gesture immediately. 

She rolls over so her back is to the animal’s stomach and stretches her arm out along the wolf’s paw. She rests her head on her arm and feels some of her cold-induced weariness leave her, seeping somewhere else, far away from her.

 

But it doesn’t last. Her arm starts to grow cold again. She turns over again, curious.

The wolf has left her and is padding away. The red star in the sky shines brighter and brighter until it swallows the entire sky. Then Ida wakes with a start in her bed.

 

It’s morning.


	9. Chapter 9

**United States, Present-Day**

After school that day, Dottie heads back to the library, wondering if Angie and Peggy will be there after school (it seems logical enough, because they were there before school). However, she’s the first student to arrive to a room full of books empty of people other than the librarian, whose name she still does not know. She heads to the back of the library first, but not the far back, so she won’t be cornered by anyone coming in.

Not that she expects anyone to come in; it’s just a habit.

From the very back of the adjoining room of the library, she scans the whole area and decides that, statistically, the safest place is between two bolted-down bookshelves in the middle and towards the back of the adjoining room she’s in. As she looks around it, she realizes that holds the Fantasy section.

She’s walking towards one of the shelves when her eyes dart right to it.  _ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz _ , by L. Frank Baum.

It’s… a book? Is this real?

She tears it from the shelf and dives down to the ground, frantically skipping About The Author and Introduction and turning frantically to the first page. Her eyes seek the words, half-desperate.

“Dorothy lived in the midst of the great Kansas prairies, with Uncle Henry, who was a farmer, and Aunt Em, who was the farmer's wife.”

That’s it. That’s it! That’s Dorothy, Uncle Henry, and Auntie -- Aunt -- Em. It’s all here. It’s all here!

A grin, the first real smile in a long time, breaks over Dottie’s face, like the rainbow Dorothy Gale sang about in the film. She clutches the book to her chest, flops down onto her stomach, and dives headfirst into the fictional world, not looking up for an hour.

She gasps out loud when book-Dorothy enters Oz. She imagines the world breaking into color around her, as it did in the movie, for the very first time. She imagines the plants, the flowers, all the things she’s never seen blooming before. A butterfly buzzes around an elaborate purple, ruffly flower with a red center. A stick-like, green bug with flamboyant dragonfly wings buzzes like a bee over to a tulip. She sees a blue sky. She sees the red brick and yellow brick roads. She sees the munchkins, in every color of skin tone and clothing, circling around her and dancing. And they’re dancing around her. After reading the name Dorothy for so long, she pictures herself in place of the character.

And the Wicked Witch of the East is dead. And she celebrates.  
  


She’s so deep in the book she doesn’t even notice when Peggy and Angie enter the library and go right to the table they sat at to discuss mitosis earlier that day. She’s so deep in the book she doesn’t notice when suddenly, seemingly of their own free will, every student stands almost as one and starts walking out the door. She doesn’t notice how Peggy is the only person other than her who doesn’t suddenly get the urge to leave, or how Peggy finally shrugs and follows Angie out anyway.

But she does notice when someone powerful enters the room.

Every sense on high-alert, she clamps down over any energy she might be releasing, picturing herself in a coffin-sized, iron box, a trick she’d been taught to contain her energy. Contain.  _ Control _ . 

The woman, pale-skinned with sharp blue eyes and curly blonde hair not unlike Dottie’s, makes her way over to the librarian and asks, in a clearly American accent, for a book called  _ The Phantom Tollbooth _ .

“Certainly, Whitney,” the librarian simpers, her brown eyes glazing over. Clearly, this “Whitney” is dangerous, and Dottie becomes scared. 

Slowly, she closes  _ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz _ and stands. Keeping her steps and breathing even, as she’s been trained to do, she steps over to the library’s entrance, passing within a few feet of Whitney. However, she doesn’t even react as Dottie passes behind her. 

As she slips out the glass doors, she sees, for a moment, in their reflection, Whitney stretching out her hand towards the librarian. Not waiting to see what she does next, she slips through the doors and starts walking down the hallway, moving slowly away from the dangerous woman.

 

Though scared, Dottie measures her steps to the nearest bathroom. Only when she’s closed the door behind her does she tear frantically into her backpack, yanking her blonde curls into a bun and shoving a brunette wig over her head. She pins it in place, carefully, and replaces her navy-blue jacket with a white tee shirt. She quickly changes pants, too, and replaces her short heels with flats, making herself appear much shorter. When she exits the bathroom, she looks almost nothing like how she did when she came in. Her stance changes, too; before, she’d held herself upright, but now she slouches like she hasn’t been happy in years. 

Risking half a glance backwards, she sees the woman is in the hallway behind her, having left the library mere minutes after walking in. “Hello?” she calls after Dottie.

Dottie doesn’t turn around. Making sure her wig is on firmly, she begins to run. She barely gets a few steps, though, before she realizes she’s lost the image of the iron box. There’s no way out of it; the woman  _ knows _ . She starts to run faster, almost reaching the corner.

Before she can get three more steps, though, the woman spits a word at her. Dottie doesn’t recognize it, but she knows its effects; as soon as the woman says it, Dottie feels herself slow, as if the air around her has turned to maple syrup. She strains forward, hearing the woman’s heels click quickly towards her. She’s running after Dottie now, and Dottie’s losing her head-start.

No spell can hold another witch for long, though. Dottie twists and breaks free, the slowing spell shattering around her, and hurtles towards and out of the school’s front door.

She’s running hard but not even panting as she dashes furiously over the grass. She feels like she’s flying, but she’s fleeing, running, sprinting as fast as she can. Her eyes flick back and forth. She’s got no choice; to get out of this one, she’s going to have to use her abilities.

She approaches the fence. People are going to see. She doesn’t care. Clenching and then stretching her hands, she catches on to the wind below her, feeling it mold itself solid under her hands. She pushes off of it, showing upward, propelling herself up over the wall. She almost tumbles over in the air for a second, but rights herself by stretching her arms out to her sides, levitating. She hears gasps behind her as she falls, slower than any human naturally could, to the ground, landing into a crouch. 

 

Two people are on the other side of the fence. As she raises her eyes to meet theirs, she realizes it's Peggy and Angie.

Angie looks starstruck while Peggy looks almost scared. “Dottie? Is that you? How did you-”

“Run,” hisses Dottie. She tears past them, letting the still-solid wind carry her half-running, half-flying feet towards the pine forest two hundred yards from school property. The trees bounce in her field of vision and she forces the wind to push her harder. Peggy and Angie are running behind her, already breathing hard, but Dottie doesn’t slow or wait.

She launches herself upward, far higher than the average human can jump, and catches on to the lowest branch of the first pine she comes to. Again using the wind, she flips herself up onto it, landing there for a second before catapulting herself higher into the tree. She scrambles up, not caring that her hands are covered in sap and scrapes from the bark or that needles are lodged in her curls. Each branch she attains gives her a greater sense of security, and by the time she reaches the top, she knows she’s safe. The American witch hasn’t found her. None of them know her identity, yet. 

She casts herself invisible, erases the trace she left, and watches as Peggy and Angie reach the forest boundary and begin to call for her. Shit; she hadn’t thought of that. Balancing on her branch, she stretches her hands down to the girls and casts a temporary muting hex. The feeling of liquid stars flows through her, but she clenches her hands into fists; the power will not overwhelm her.

The woman is now running out of the school. She looks one way and then another, stepping outside the door and walking in circles, but Dottie’s trace is gone. The woman comes partway towards the forest, then turns around and heads back. The principal of the school opens the door and takes her by the arm, leading her back inside. Dottie, in the tree, relaxes.

After a few more moments, she starts to climb down, trembling from exertion. Peggy and Dottie race over and she flicks her fingers, erasing the hex. Likely, they didn’t even notice they were casted on; all the hex did was remove their desire to speak, not take away their voices.

And their voices are certainly back. Dottie clambers down the tree to high-pitched disbelieving shouts. “You fucking flew! It looked like you fucking flew!” Angie is in awe. “How’d you do it? It looked so real!” 

Peggy looks likewise amazed; she’s got a disbelieving smile plastered all over her face. “Dottie, that was  _ unbelievable _ ! How did you do it?”

“I’m not in the clear yet,” Dottie hisses back. “Come with me. I’ll tell you everything.”

“Should we?” Angie asks, turning and shrugging to Peggy. Dottie doesn’t wait for Peggy’s response, instead continuing deeper into the forest, speeding up and taking a zig-zagging path just in case the witch comes back. She erases her trace as she goes, flicking the tips of her fingers and clearing the air of magical residue. Since she’s running on a carpet of pine needles, her footprints don’t show.

Soon, she hears footsteps behind her. Angie and Peggy pull up to her left. “Where are we going?” Angie pants, out of breath. Peggy, however, looks as if she could run all day.

 

Dottie picks up the pace. “Away.”

 

A few minutes later, Angie stops. “Okay,” she says, catching her breath and placing her hands on her knees. “We’re done. We’re  _ done _ .”

 

Dottie slows to a jog and loops back around. She notes that they’re in one of many tiny clearings in the pine forest, maybe five feet square and roughly circular. She does a quick scan; there’s nothing in the area. No animals and no people. It’s fitting; all non-domesticated animals run whenever there’s magic in the vicinity, meaning almost all of them run from Dottie’s presence. 

She drops her backpack on a tree stump and exhales. She quickly unpins her wig, first one pin and then the other, and lets her blonde hair back out, folding her wig and resting it next to her. Peggy comes over to her and rests a hand on her shoulder. “Dottie,” she says. “What  _ was _ that?”

Dottie gives a tiny smile and places her wig gently back into her backpack. “Wait for Angie.”

“A’right,” Angie groans, getting to her feet (she had promptly fallen over dramatically as soon as the others had stopped running) and approaching the two girls by the stump. “I’m here. You,” she points exhaustedly towards Dottie, “ _ Have _ to tell us.”

Dottie kicks her backpack off the stump and seats herself. “Well, what do you think it was?”

Peggy is silent. Angie’s not. “Well, I guess you’re just really good at parkouring. Right, Peggy?”

“I-” Peggy shakes her head. “I confess, I’ve no idea.” It didn’t look fake, not to her, but it’s impossible for it to have been real.

“Well, I’ll tell you, then.”

Dottie shifts on the stump and gestures in front of her. Peggy seats herself among the needles and Angie, more reluctantly, sits, too.

“I’m a witch,” Dottie whispers. Her lipstick is sharp and her eyes glitter, backlit like a light trapped under frozen water. 

“What?” Angie asks skeptically. “What, you mean you can  _ really _ do magic? Cuz I really-”

Dottie raises her eyebrows and Angie’s skirt flies up into her lap. She shoves it back down and raises her face to meet Dorothy’s. “You-”

“How did you do that?” Peggy asks, scooting closer. Dottie grins and runs her tongue just along the inside of her top teeth. “Like this.”

She stands and raises her hands to just above her waist. Three pinecones and a swarm of pine needles raise themselves a foot above the ground, coalesce, spread, and begin to spin in a circle around the three girls. Dottie closes her eyes. Her hands start to tremble, quaking back and forth, as she brings them back down to the ground. The needles and pinecones settle again over the grass, which has been burned into a radial, geometric pattern around Dottie’s feet.

She sighs and sits back down, brushing a hair out of her face. Despite her trembling hands a second ago, she doesnt look tired, though there’s heightened color in her cheeks. “So,” she remarks, taking in Angie’s and Peggy’s stupefied faces, “are you convinced?”

 

“Um, hell yeah!” Angie is the first to speak. She brushes pine needles aside with her hand. “Dude. You just legit created a crop circle.”

Dottie laughs. “Most of the bigger ones are created by more witches working in unison.”   
  
“Really?” Peggy asks. “What would they be doing out in farmers’ fields at night?”

Angie snaps her fingers. “Real questions.”

Dottie looks tempted to roll her eyes. “Where else would they practice their spells? It’s not exactly like there’s a city nightclub for them.”

“There’s not?”

“ _ No _ ,” Dottie emphasizes, like it’s obvious. “Surprisingly, we’re not all living in a fantasy movie.”

“Could’a fooled me,” Angie mutters. “But seriously, what do witches actually, y’know,  _ do _ ?”

Dottie is silent for a moment. “Well, we have jobs like you do. We go to work and we come back to our houses. The only real difference is that, for us, we have other abilities at our disposal.”

“But what do you use those for?”

Dottie just shrugs, like “who could possibly know?” and gives an innocent grin. Peggy’s not fooled. “Dot,” she asks, “are you hiding something?”

Dottie smiles brightly. “Oh, no. Nothing at all. It’s just that every witch uses their magic for something different. There’s a code of conduct, of course -- don’t be obvious, don’t kill anyone; that sort of thing, but really all the witches just… go about their business.”

She spreads her hands and clasps them back together. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“O...kay,” Angie nods. “I can accept that there’s magic and I can even accept that you have magic, but why don’t  _ I _ have magic? I think that’s another real question here.”

Peggy places her face into her palm. “An _ gie _ ,” she sighs. 

Dottie shrugs again, coupled with a reappearance of her sharp, white grin. “Some people were just born with it. I was lucky enough to be.”

“How did you find out you had it?”

“My mother told me she had it and showed me how to use my powers.”

“And how has nobody discovered you guys exist?”

It’s Peggy’s turn to snap her fingers. “Real questions.”

“You did,” says Dottie, surprised. “Every person at this school knows what a witch is. Of course, there are some… misconceptions, but we  _ have _ been discovered, and several times over. It’s just that the discoverers are never believed.”

“I can see that,” Angie agrees. “I mean, if you were to go up to your mom, Pegs, and tell her your classmate is a witch, would she believe you?”

“Probably not. But still, Dottie, it seems to me that some witch would, at some point, spill her secrets to someone. A lover, perhaps.”

“Well, the first flaw with that assumption is that  _ most _ , or at least a good percentage, of witches lack any sexual or romantic desires.”

“Ace witches.” Angie is nodding. “Fantastic.”

“Really?” Peggy asks. “Is that related to being a witch?”

Dottie nods. “Yes. It’s no coincidence that purple is the color of both magic, mysticism, and asexuals. Almost all fall on the asexual or aromantic spectrums. Most fall on both.”

“And you?”

“That’s a bit of a personal question, hm?”

“Right.” Peggy turns her head, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“Oh, it’s no problem,” Dot replies, but she still doesn’t answer. “I do think it’s getting late. We should probably all go back to our residences.”

“Go home.”

“What?”

“Go home,” Angie repeats. “You can just say ‘we should all go home.’”

“Oh, but doesn’t that imply we all live in the same place?”

Angie shrugs. “I guess?”

Peggy looks over at Dottie thoughtfully. “You don’t have a home,” she guesses.

Dottie laughs brightly. “That’s ridiculous, Peggy. Everyone has a home. Well, everyone rich enough does!  _ Please _ . I am not living on the streets.”

Angie gangs up on her, taking Peggy’s side. “Maybe you don’t have a place you consider home, then,” she says. “Are your parents mean, or something?”

There’s a strange flash of light in Dottie’s eyes for a moment. “No indeed,” she says slowly. “I have a home. I always have had a place to go back to.”

Angie shrugs. “A’ight, then. Hey, wanna get ice-cream? I bet with your witchy powers, you could, like, levitate it or something.”

“Angie, she’s probably exhausted.”

“So? Sugar’s a cure!”

“How about you ask  _ her _ what she wants?”

“Alright. Dottie, do you want to get some awesome, cool, tasty ice-cream with me and Peggy or mope on back to your ‘home’ all by yourself?”

“Well, when you phrase it like that, I can’t say no,” Dottie smiles, getting to her feet. “I’ll come get ice-cream with you.”   


“Excellent.”

“But first I need to change my clothes again.”

“Right!” Angie snaps her fingers. “Why did you run from the woman there?”

“A long story.”

“Can you tell it over ice-cream?”

Dottie winces but says yes.

~

The walk to Toby’s Homemade ice-cream parlor is uneventful. Dottie changed behind a fern bush and Angie and Peggy’s turned backs, re-donning her navy blue jacket and pants, combing her wig, and refolding everything into her backpack. She’ll need to buy a new backpack; she’d imagine the witch would have memorized the pattern on hers. And when she’s replaced the backpack, she’ll put the incriminating one in someone else’s locker, someone with dark brown hair. That’ll assuredly throw the American witch off the trail.

“So why  _ did _ you run?” Peggy asks, as they walk.

“She was after me,” Dottie replies. “She’s another witch. Maybe she sensed my magic and gravitated towards it.”

“That doesn’t explain why you disguised yourself and literally  _ flew _ away from her,” Angie points out.

“It also doesn’t explain why you had a change of clothes and a wig in the first place,” Peggy adds.

Dottie thinks quickly. “The wig came from art class. You know the Seniors’ mannequin project? Someone had a spare wig.”

“It’s good quality,” Angie remarks.

“It’s a good co-incidence,” Peggy adds.

“Well, I had just left it in my backpack for the past few days. I’m horrendous at unpacking and just forgot about it, I guess.”

“Oh, I do that all the time,” Angie laughs. “Keep going.”

“Well, the extra change of clothes I just keep, always, just in case. You never know what’s going to happen.”

The three girls keep walking, Dottie’s pale hand occasionally falling across Peggy’s darker one. Angie is on Peggy’s other side, texting and humming lightly as she walks. She pockets the phone, though, and turns again to Dottie. “So why did you run from the other witch, again?”

“Not all witches are friends.”

“Why not?”

“Well, not all humans are friends, either.”

“Are witches not human, then?” Peggy queries.

“You really can’t put anything past you, can you?” Dottie counter-queries. “We  _ are _ human. Very. That was a bad choice of words.”

“And why, again, do you have powers when most people don’t?”

“Why do some people have blue eyes and others don’t? Simple evolution.”

“Blue eyes are overrated,” Peggy scoffs. 

Dottie smiles. “I’m sure they are.”

“Do you think the witch is looking for you?” Angie asks.

“Yes,” Dottie replies, not sounding nervous at all. “I’m going to have to hide my powers until she goes away.”

“How long do you think that’ll take?”

“Who can say? Once she’s established there’s no magic in the area, she’ll disappear.”

“Literally?!”

“No! No. She’ll leave, I should have said.” Dottie gives a small laugh. “Unless I make her vanish.”

“Can you do that?”

“Never tried.” Dottie gives a flirtatious, sharp smile to both girls and wiggles her fingers, then laughs at their terrified expressions. “I’m  _ joking! _ ”

“Dottie,  _ don’t _ !” Peggy slaps her gently on the shoulder. Dottie gives her fingers another playful waggle and drops them to her sides. Peggy notices that she continues to smile all the way to the ice-cream shop.  
  


“Welcome, Margaret!” calls Jakab, the elderly man who always seems to be at the cash register when the girls walk in, as he always does.

“Call me Peggy!” Peggy calls back cheerfully, with a wave, as she always does. She pulls her purse, which holds her wallet, out from one of the outer pockets of her backpack.

“Alright, Peggy.” He feigns disappointment and then breaks into a wide smile, as he always does. “I imagine you’ll have your typical yogurt parfait, as you always do?”

“Yogurt parfait!” Dottie is faux-scandalized. “Pegs, you can’t  _ possibly _ enjoy that!”

“I know,” Angie mutters in Dottie’s ear. “It’s simply unbelievable. With her body, she could eat for days and then be  _ average _ .”

“Not true,” Peggy hisses, looking annoyed. “I’m a perfectly healthy weight, and weight doesn’t matter, anyways.”

Jakab pats his (fairly large) belly and smiles. “Well-said, Agent Carter.”

“Oh, don’t call me that!” Peggy laughs. It’s an inside joke between them; one day, Peggy had come to the shop in a pair of red, 40s-style sunglasses, which Jakab said would befit a secret agent. “Imagine it,” he’d said that day. “A female agent, underestimated by all, who carries out her own investigations because she’s overlooked. She can flirt, she can think, and, most importantly, she can kick  _ ass _ .”

“Sexist ass,” Peggy had bantered back.

“Sexist ass,” Jakab had agreed. “The worst type of ass there is.”

Then they’d both erupted in laughter and Jakab had bought her an ice-cream cone.

“How about something special for today, though?” Jakab is saying. Peggy blinks back to the present. “Ah yes,” she agrees, without knowing exactly what she’s agreeing to.

“Which flavor, then?” Jakab asks, looking pleased.

“Oh! Uh,” Peggy’s brain makes the connections in a heartbeat, “French vanilla, please.”

Angie nudges her. “Two scoops.”

“Two scoops.”

“And for you, Miss Martinelli?”

“Ay, how come she’s the Agent and I’m a Miss?”

Jakab shrugs. “I don’t make the rules ’round here.”

Angie’s fake-offended. “Oh, come on!”

“President Martinelli, then.”

“That works.” Angie’s pleased. “I’ll have three scoops of strawberry with whipped cream and a cherry on top.”

Peggy raises her eyebrows at her friend. “It’s a special occasion,” Angie sighs, sweeping her arm around the room.

“And for you, young lady? What’s your name?”

“Dottie,” Dottie replies, smiling. Jakab draws back almost imperceptibly, a movement so small that Dottie, even with all her training, barely picks up on it. Likely,  _ he’s _ not even aware he made it. He can sense there’s something off about her, though, deep in his subconscious mind. Dottie makes a mental note to be careful of this man. “I’d like some of the chocolate, please. One scoop.”

“Alright, then.”

He bustles over to the ice cream in its case and begins filling the cones. Peggy takes hers, then Angie, then Dottie. Dottie notices the man is careful not to let their fingers touch as she takes the cone. He’s a sensitive one; not many humans are.

She smiles and thanks him, dropping a quarter in the tip jar, and walks with the other girls to the back of the parlor where they seat themselves at a small, circular table. “We always sit here,” Angie tells Dottie.

Dottie smiles tightly and begins to lick her cone. Soon, as the girls eat, conversation becomes obsolete.

 

Dottie is the first to finish her cone. She eats it fast, as if she’s not used to sweet things. Peggy notices and places a hand on top of Dottie’s.

“Dottie?"

“What is it, Peg?”

“Are you treated alright? By your parents?”

“What a strange question to ask,” Dottie returns, bemused. “Of course.”

Angie looks like she doesn’t quite buy it. “Are you sure?”

Dottie nods solemnly, staring right into Peggy’s eyes. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Here,” Angie says, handing Dottie the remains of her strawberry cone. “You seem hungry.”

“Well, using so much magic can deplete you.”

“How does it work, exactly?” Peggy asks. “I mean, how does it affect you?”

“How do you mean?”

“You’re hungry now, obviously, and you were tired after you made that crop-circle.”

“Oh yeah!” Angie breaks in. “D’you think someone’s going to notice that?”

Dottie shrugs. “They’d find an explanation. Besides, we were in the middle of the woods.”

The two girls are misremembering, Dottie notes. Dottie was flushed and alert from using her powers, not tired at all. She’s recovering, not from exhaustion, but from a short-term, giddy high. It’s funny, isn’t it, how people will always make assumptions that change their very memories? Even about things they know nothing about?

Dottie wants to tell them the truth. She shouldn’t, of course, and Leviathan would have her hide, but they won’t know. Besides, it’s not like Peggy will be able to blab. And Angie, Dottie thinks, scanning her up and down surreptitiously, will be irrelevant.

“I wasn’t tired, actually,” she says, after thanking Angie for the cone and offering it back. Angie lets her keep it with a wave of her hand.

“You weren’t?” Peggy asks, surprised. “You turned all red, didn’t you?”

“Not  _ very _ red,” Dottie mutters. 

Angie laughs. “A little red.”

“Well, the thing about my magic,” just to be a little shit, Dottie lifts Peggy’s cone slightly out of her hands, “is that the more you use it, the more you want to. But there’s a tipping point.”

She looks around the store and then yanks the cone right into her own hands. There’s a brief, pale blue flash that quickly dies on the air. Smiling, Dottie takes a lick.

Peggy makes a soft “Oh,” as her cone flies out of her hands. Dottie grins more wickedly and levitates it back over to her, feigning chagrin as she does.

Angie is laughing hysterically at Peggy’s expression, and finally the other two girls join in. “Tell us more, though,” Peggy urges, after their giggles die down. “You said a tipping point?”

Dottie nods, wondering if this was a bad idea. “There is. See, it appears that you control the magic, but it almost seems like, in the background, the magic is controlling you. When you use your abilities,” she spreads her red-painted nails in front of her, “it’s like the best feeling in the world. Euphoria. It flows through you and out of you. You never want to cut it off. Witches often go overboard.”

“How do you mean?”

“The thing about the power is that it can overwhelm you. The more you use it, the more you want to. It’s unlimited power, unlimited ability.”

“But if you use it too much, it destroys you,” Angie guesses.

Dottie turns to her, surprised. “Yes.”

“How can you know when you’re… almost there?” Peggy asks.

“When using magic? Well, it’s fairly simple. When the euphoria, the feeling that you’re as powerful as a god, starts to overwhelm you, you have to stop.”

“And what happens when you don’t? How exactly does the magic overwhelm you?”

Dottie tilts her head and smiles. “You get a small black crack,” she says lightly. “Somewhere on your body. It won’t cover up. Not with makeup. You’ll have to wrap it in a cloth, wear a headpiece or headscarf. And it never goes away. It starts a little whisper in your head. That whisper seems to come from your own thoughts, so you obey it. That’s your mistake. Because then the magic you used to control starts controlling you. The more you use it, the larger the crack grows and the stronger the whisper becomes. And you become a slave to the power you used to wield.”

She takes a lick of her ice-cream cone. “Very poetic, don’t you think?”

“That’s  _ awful _ !” Angie exclaims. “And you’re in danger of that every time you use your powers?”

Dottie scoffs. “Oh, no. It would take a massive outpouring of magic to create the crack. Think of it as a sort of… dimensional rift.”

“Oh, like Stranger Things?”

“Not exactly, Angie,” Peggy mutters, embarrassed. Dottie laughs.

“Not exactly is right, but the idea is there. It would take a massive amount of energy to punch through a dimension. That’s now much magic it would take to get the crack to appear.”

“So your abilities literally come from  _ another dimension _ ?”

Dottie blinks. “Do try and keep up. Obviously, they couldn’t have originated in this one.”

Peggy ignores the jab and looks as if a half-finished jigsaw has been pushed in front of her face; itching to pull the pieces together. “So when you use magic, you’re pulling your abilities from another dimension, somehow without creating a rift?”

“Yes. It’s too small an amount to create a rift. It just… seeps through. Like a piece of fabric. Water can saturate and flow through fabric, but a powerful, concentrated burst of water can also poke a hole in your shirt. Levitating an ice-cream cone? Insignificant. Think on a larger scale, Peg.”

“And you’re able to pull out the magic from that other dimension because of your inherited ability.”

“Yes, an ability that grows with age.” Dottie looks like a small, dull animal she used to look on upon has suddenly performed a miraculous feat.

“What do you mean, about age?” Peggy asks, still relentlessly curious.

“Well, a young witch, say eight or nine, is far smaller -- smaller mentally, smaller physically, and weaker -- than an older witch, say 18 to 20. Therefore, it takes less energy, less power, to Rift -- to get that crack, when you’re young. It’s also harder to resist the pull of the magic, the urge to keep using more, when you’re young, so it’s easier to use too much.”

“And if you use too much of that power,” Peggy guesses, “then you open a rift, a Rift, right in you! Right on your body. And the magic, or whatever it is-”

“Zero matter,” Dottie sighs, as if it’s obvious. “And it’s too much power  _ at once _ . You can use as much as you want, over time.”

“So if you use too much, zero matter, this Zero Matter that your magic comes from, comes through and starts controlling you!” Peggy finishes triumphantly.

“Well done, Agent Carter,” Dottie grins, shaking her head slowly. “You really have  _ outdone _ yourself.”

Angie looks a bit hurt and edges her way into the conversation. “But where did all this zero magic matter thing come from in the first place?”

“A botched nuclear explosion.”

“I beg your pardon?” Peggy’s incredulous.

“Set off as a test. Somewhere… oh, I don’t  _ quite _ know where. Instead of the mushroom cloud and typical mass destruction, the blast sent out a shockwave and, strangely enough, opened a rift. A mysterious crack, right in the sky.” Dottie waggles her fingers. “And then everything was sucked into it but the camera steel-staked into the ground.”

“Unbelievable!”

“It’s true,” Dottie grins. “Really something.”

She takes a massive bite, the most inelegant move Angie and Peggy have ever seen her make, and finishes the cone. “Ready to leave?”

“You,” Angie mutters, “are one weird girl.”

“Angie!” Peggy chastizes.

“What?!”

Dottie laughs again. “Oh,” she says. “You’ve no idea.”

She moves to get up, knocking Peggy’s purse to the ground. “Oh, I’m such a klutz!” she immediately exclaims. She dives to the ground to shove the items back inside. “I’m so sorry!”

She hands the purse back to Peggy apologetically. “Don’t worry about it, Dottie,” Peggy says, waving the apology away. “You’re fine.”

Dottie smiles nervously.

“How long ago was the Rift first opened?” Peggy asks as they gather their things. They make for the exit, waving to Jakab on their way out. He waves back, smiles, and then decides to scoop himself a triple vanilla sundae.

“Oh, in the 1940s, most recently.”

“So there were no witches prior to that?”

“There were, but their power must have come from a different dimensional Rift. There must have been another Rift sometime even before. Perhaps when that meteor destroyed the dinosaurs. Who knows? That explosion would have been large enough, surely.”

“This is all really interesting,” says Angie, reshouldering her backpack, “but I gotta go. I’m gonna walk over to my place; it’s not far from here. My mom said no friends after school, today, though.”

“I don’t blame her,” Peggy mutters.

“Hey!” Angie playfully slaps Peggy in the arm. “I’m not that bad!”

“Peggy?” Dottie asks, pulling her attention from Angie before she can reply. “Would you mind calling a taxi for us? My phone is out of battery, and I think I live nearby you.”

“You two are cuties,” says Angie, stepping back and smiling wryly. “You’d make a great couple.”

Peggy chokes on her own saliva and Dottie bursts into shiny peals of laughter. Angie takes a theatrical bow and quickly leaves the ice-cream parlor without another word.

 

“I was just wondering,” says Peggy as she and Dottie stand outside the ice cream parlor, backs against the brick, “if you’d like to come out to dinner with me? This Saturday. Angie will be there, and her boyfriend too. I asked her if you could come back when we had the sleepover at her house, after you left.”

“Dinner, huh? With Angie and her boyfriend?”

“Yes.”

Dottie grins. “So is it a double date, then? How romantic. And dinner, too; not just a movie or a Starbucks?”

Peggy blushes slightly. “Uh, a date? Well, only if you want it to be, of course. I mean, I wouldn’t mind. If you would, that’s okay, but uh-”

Dottie pretends to consider. “I accept!” she exults in a rush. “What time does it start?”

“I can be by to pick you up at… maybe six?” Peggy suggests.

“I’ll be ready.”

“What’s your address?”

“2412 Red Street, Syracuse, 13202.”

Peggy nods and puts the address into her phone’s Notes app. “I’m looking forward to Saturday.”

Dottie’s smile grows strange. “So am I, Peggy.”

The taxi pulls up, and Peggy raises her eyebrows. “That was fast. Though I guess taxicabs are everywhere here.” She takes Dottie’s hand without thinking, and feels the strange, repelling-magnet sensation again.

“Is that because you’re a witch?” she asks. “That weird… thing. When I grabbed your hand.”

Dottie shrugs. “Guess it must be. I don’t mean to do it, I promise.”

Peggy smiles. “Well, it’s nice.”

She doesn’t quite know what to say after that, so she releases Dottie’s hand and goes up to the driver, handing her some dollar bills. “I’ll pay for the ride,” she calls back to Dottie. “My house is farther anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Dottie walks up next to her.

“Positive.” In a dramatic gesture reminiscent of Angie, Peggy pulls open the back door and gestures for Dottie to get in. Dottie flashes a grin and slides across to the far window. Peggy follows.

“You two girlfriends?” the cab driver asks.

Peggy looks over at Dottie and shrugs. Dottie provides the succinct, defiant reply.

“Yes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If any of the Peggy/Dottie relationship seems to have progressed too quickly, there is an explanation, but it won't be for a while yet.
> 
> Please, all comments are appreciated and they really help me write! <33


	10. Chapter 10

**Russia, circa 2009**

“Ida Emke, I need to speak with you,” says Madame G., placing a cool hand on Ida’s shoulder as she silently eats her breakfast. At the sudden touch, Ida spins around, eyes wide and body stiff. “Relax,” Madame G. orders. “And come with me.” Not one to waste words (or time), she begins walking away.

Ida steps from the table. The eyes of the other girls are on her, and their gazes are, as always, sharp. Madame G. leads her up past the front of the room and down a hallway she’s never been in, all the way to her large and spacious office.

 

It’s the most colorful room Ida has seen in as long as she can remember. The walls are pale blue, not white, and the upholstery on the chairs is a satiny, almost reflective silver. Pink ballet shoes hang along the wall, interspersed with jagged, abstract, blue-grey-green paintings.

“Sit,” says Madame G.

Ida sits, trailing her fingers along the shininess of the chair fabric underneath her.

“Do you know why you’re here?”

Ida shakes her head, stilling her hand.

“Speak.”

“No.”

“No, what?”

“No, Madame G. I don’t know why I’m here.”

“You did very well against Anya.”  
  
“Thank you, Madame G.”

“I would like you to begin meeting with an associate of mine, Dr. Johann Fennhoff. He trains only the best girls, and you’ve appeared to have qualified.”

“Thank you, Madame G.”

“From now on, whenever Fennhoff calls you, you will go to him with no complaints and no expectations. Regard him as you do me.”

“Yes, Madame G.”

“Full co-operation with him is expected. _Posture, Ida!_ ” The last two words are half-shouts -- biting, cruel. Ida jerks her shoulders straighter. “Good.”

There’s a pause as headmistress and pupil stare at each other across the former’s desk, Ida clearly wary of Madame G., and Madame G., though she doesn’t show an ounce of it, wary of Ida.

“Do you have any questions?” Madame G. asks.

Ida thinks that Madame has given her so little information that every thought she has is a question. Slowly, she nods.

“What is it?” Madame snaps, as if she hadn’t just asked if Ida had any questions.

Ida’s thoughts scatter with the unexpected harsh words, and the first question that returns to her lips is “Do wolves mean anything?”

Madame G. gives her an angry, puzzled look. “What on earth do you mean,” she says flatly.

Ida shakes her head and awkwardly swallows her own saliva. “It’s nothing, Madame G.”

“Tell me.” Is there something like suspicion in her tone?

“I dreamed of a wolf last night, Madame G. It was mean at first, but then it liked me. And I was warm. And it -- the creature, the animal -- it seemed… familiar.” Though Ida has been locked-down and trained to be ruthless, she is still a child, and her words tumble out in awkward cascades. “It had red eyes. And I was in a landscape like a forest, and there was no color at all, and-”

“Enough,” says Madame G. “This is silly nonsense, and you _will_ learn to be obedient!” She stands and slams her hands on her desk, shaking it and everything on it, and looming over Ida. Her hand swoops down to Ida’s cheek, slapping her hard enough to leave a red mark and a powerful sting. Then she sits back, perfectly collected, with a faint smile on her face.  “You may go.”

Ida’s eyes are wide and her eyes are filling, but she clenches her fists and stands. “Yes, Madame G.”

She turns and leaves the room, making her way back along the cold hallways and rooms with the windows all-too-small. Finally, she reaches the movie room, where Madames Y. and K. are hooking up a projector. Slowly, she takes her seat at her desk, third row and fourth from the left. A decent vantage point for whatever their film of choice for the day is.

“No,” says Madame K., startling the girl. “Ida, you sit up front. Maria, you move to Ida’s seat.”

The best seatings, for the best fighters, typically older girls, are at the front. Maria stands and throws Ida a positively murderous glare, taking the steps back to the third row slowly. Ida gingerly approaches the front-row seat, as if Madame K., at any second, will order her to go back. But it doesn’t happen, and Ida finds herself at the front of the room between two 14-year-olds who don’t even acknowledge her presence.

  
  
The movie comes on. It’s _The Wizard of Oz_ , subtitled in English, and Ida has never seen something so beautiful in her life.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> MLA format fucking sucks.

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie calls Peggy later that night. Peggy’s in the middle of her history research paper -- Trench Warfare in WWI -- when her cellphone rings. She answers brightly when she sees it’s Dottie; she’d been wanting an excuse for a break.

“What is it, Dottie?”

“Well, I was just wondering what to wear! It’s my first date, see, and I’m a little bit nervous. Do you think a dress -- or maybe pants -- or-”

Peggy suppresses a laugh.

“-Or maybe a skirt? I don’t want to be too formal, but I want to look nice.” She pauses. “This is, after all, my first date.”

“Oh, Dottie. Anything is fine. As long as you’re there, I won’t mind at all what you wear.”

“Really?”

“Of course not!”

“Well, do you think red or blue would suit me better? Oh- oh, I have a fantastic idea. You wear red and I’ll wear blue and together, we can make up the Union Jack! Red flatters you so much, Pegs.”

Peggy laughs out loud, then. “The Union Jack? You’re worse than Angie!”

Dottie laughs, too, on the other end of the line. “You _exude_ Britishness, Peggy! You really can’t blame us.”

Peggy shakes her head. “Alright. I’ll wear red.”

She looks sideways at her closet. “I have two red dresses. You wouldn’t mind coming over to my house and helping me choose? Then I can drive us both to the restaurant. It’s called Joe’s, I believe.”

She can practically see Dottie grinning. “That sounds wonderful, Peggy! Do you mind if I bring a few outfits of my own to choose from?”

“Of course.”

Peggy smiles again and shyly tucks her chin towards the neckline of her t-shirt. It’s her first date, too, and she doesn’t quite know exactly what to say. “I’ll see you soon, then, I guess?”

“Definitely, Pegs! I’ll be over to your place at Saturday at… what? Would 4:00 work for you?”

“Yes indeed. I will clear my schedule.”

“Oh, aren’t you a busy Little Miss Popular!”

Peggy chuckles. “No, no I’m not.”

“Well, more than me,” Dottie twitters. There’s a clunking sound somewhere in the background. “Oh, that’s my mom,” she hisses, sounding annoyed. “I have to go. We cook dinner together and it’s wonderful.”

“See you soon, Dottie.”

“See you soon, Pegs!”

Dottie clicks off. Peggy tries to dive back into her research paper, but her mind is distracted. She decides instead to Skype Angie.

 

“Hey, girl,” Angie grins the second Peggy comes online. She clicks her video camera on, resettles herself on her couch, and fixes her curls. “Yo.”

“Hello, Angie,” Peggy smiles. Dottie might be her newest fascination, but Angie is her dependability, her rock, her closest friend. It’s hard to imagine a time when she hasn’t known her, but she knows it’s only been six months. Still, they’d gravitated towards each other strongly. Peggy grounds Angie’s dramatic flightiness and Angie effortlessly brings Peggy up out of her somber moods. They balance, like a scale.

“So what’s up?” Angie’s got her iPad resting on her stomach; Peggy can tell from the angle. Even from that angle, Angie looks good, which is certainly no mean feat.

“Not much. I’ve gotten rather bogged down in my history paper, and I’m wondering if you have any ideas.”

Angie shrugs. “Beats me. I’ve barely started. Hey, are we in MLA 7 or MLA 8?”

“You didn’t ask in class? Shame on you,” Peggy teases.

Angie groans. “Ms. Beringer hates me! I can’t ask her anything. The very thought is that p-word you love to use. Peposterous.”

“ _Pre_ posterous,” Peggy corrects. “And I do not love saying preposterous.”

“Yes, you do! Preposterous, preposterous. Everyone loves to say preposterous.”

“Says the girl who was pronouncing it incorrectly just five seconds ago!”

Angie throws her head back and guffaws. She has a big laugh when she wants to, especially for her size. “But seriously. Are we MLA 7 or 8?”

“Whatever EasyBib gives you works for Beringer, I believe.”

Angie nods. “Thanks, English.”

She types a few things onto her screen. “Do you ever miss it?” she asks.

“Miss what? Britain?”

“Yes.”

“Of course I do. It was home, for a while. But things are better here. New York state is lovely. I’d expected it to be all big city, but-”

“But that’s not really the full truth.”

Angie’s eyes flick downward for a moment and she looks almost sad. “It’s hard to ever get the full truth about someone or someplace, isn’t it?”

“It always is.”

“Well, why don’t you tell me about it. About your school. S.S.R.”

“We had the biggest jackass of a principle ever created by god,” Peggy laughs. “Mr. Dooley. We called him Chief Dooley because he acted like an uppity police chief with his baton stuck up his butt. Everyone hated his name and his attitude even more. Or the girls did, anyway.”

“Weren’t many girls?”

“No. A very skewed gender ratio. Lots of sexism, as well.”

“I’m so sorry, Peggy.”

“Oh, it’s fine. And I’m gone now. Here is better.”

“But is it home?”

“You’re uncharacteristically deep tonight, Martinelli.”

Angie gives a small half-smile. “What, and I’m not usually thoughtful?”

“No! I didn’t say that!” Peggy is horrified. “No! Please don’t think that, Angie!”

Angie shrugs. “Well, maybe I’m not as calm and collected as you, but it doesn’t mean I don’t think.”

“Of course not. Of course not.”

Angie’s smile returns and she moves to a topic characteristic of her. “Was there anyone special for you, at S.S.R.? A boyfriend? A _girlfriend_?” she teases.

“Of course you’d wonder that,” Peggy smiles. It’s a deeply sad smile; Angie doesn’t even know about Steve.

“Well, was there?”

“Will nothing sway you from your course?”

“Nothing, English.” Angie affects a similar accent. “I _truly_ must know _all_ about your love-life.”

“My boyfriend died,” Peggy says abruptly. The words hurt, but they’re blunt. Let Angie make of them what she will.

 

Another person might laugh and say “you’re joking,” but not Angie Martinelli. Her face moves from wheedling to horrified in a heartbeat. “Oh, my _god_ ,” she whispers, bringing a cupped hand to her mouth. The screen rocks wildly as she loses hold of the iPad and Peggy’s faced with a view of her den’s white ceiling. “Oh my god, Peggy! That’s awful!”

She brings the iPad back to her face and shakes her head, pity and disbelief and horror written all across it. “Peggy, I’m so sorry!”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god!” Angie just repeats herself. She’s floored by it, by the grief Peggy must have had, by the shock.

“It’s fine, Angie,” Peggy tells her. “Angie, it’s fine. I learned to let it go. I learned to let him go.”

Angie’s still shaking her head. “Oh my god, Peggy. I’m so sorry. And I thought my situation was bad.”

She doesn’t mean to hint, she really doesn’t. It just slips out, and she immediately hates herself because she knows that now Peggy will be worried about her.

“What is it?” Peggy asks, immediately concerned.

Angie shrugs. “It seems trivial now. But Peggy, oh my go-”

“Tell me!”

“Peggy, it doesn’t matter. Everything you must have been through -- the-”

“Angie, please. I don’t need the reminder,” Peggy says gently. “Tell me.”

Finally, reluctantly, Angie does. “Well, I broke up with him.”

“With-”

“Don’t say his name!”

“Sorry.”

Angie shakes her head. “That doesn’t matter. Not compared to what you’ve done. Peggy, you must have gone through something I never could have.  I -- I can’t even imagine. What was his name?”

“Steve.” Peggy shrugs. “And don’t say my life’s been worse than yours. It’s an arbitrary thing. But all your exes have lived, and you’re lucky.”

Angie nods. “I’m so sorry, Peggy. You know what?”

“What?”

“I’m going to come on over. Prepare your Netflix, Carter. We are having a cuddle session and a chick flick. No more boyfriend-induced-moping today.”

“Angie, I really can’t-”

“Too bad.”

 

Angie signs off the call. Her Skype icon blinks to Offline. Peggy groans and calls her back.

 

Angie immediately picks up, looking resigned. “Can’t happen?”

“I didn’t say that!”

“You kinda did. I cut you off -- sorry- -- but it seemed like you were about to say ‘Angie, I really can’t let you come over to my house because of my dumb parents.’”

“They’re not dumb.”

Angie makes a face of exaggerated skepticism. “Not even a little?”

“Okay, _maybe_ a little.”

Angie looks satisfied. “Could we have it at my house, then?”

Peggy thinks. Her parents don’t need her to do anything this afternoon, so there’s no reason she wouldn’t be able to go. “Let me ask my mom. I think she’ll let me go.”

“Why wouldn’t she?” Angie blinks.

“I don’t know. Just the way she is, I guess.” Peggy shrugs. “Be back in a few.”

She signs out of Skype and shuts her laptop, heading down the stairs. Her mom is in the kitchen, cooking dinner. Peggy’s brother is probably in his room, gaming. Her dad is eating lunch with a few of his friends, a special treat for him, so he probably won’t be back for a while.

“Hey, mom? Angie invited me over to her house. Her boyfriend broke up with her.”

Her mother turns, putting down the knife she was cutting carrots with. “What is it with them never letting me know these things?” she scoffs. “Fine; you can go.” Her face changes. “Oh, poor Angie.”

Peggy almost can’t believe her luck. “Thank you!”

“Take the car. Be safe, darling.” She walks over and gives Peggy a hug and holds her face between her hands. “Drive safe.”

Peggy nods, knowing her mother is thinking of Steve. “I will, Mom. Don’t worry.” She gently extricates herself.

Her mother smiles. “Be back by eight, if you want to eat dinner there. And if you’d rather eat here, with me and Charlie and Dad, be back around 6:30.”

“Thank you, Mom,” Peggy repeats. She gives her mom another hug and heads upstairs to send Angie a quick Skype message. Then she remembers Dottie.

They’re gonna have to cancel their double date if Angie’s breakup lasts. Peggy doesn’t know if it will; Angie is mercurial. Still, since there’s a pretty big chance they’ll have to cancel it, Peggy figures she should let Dottie know.

She heads up to her room and flips up her laptop screen. Signing into Skype, she sees that Dottie’s in the middle of the other call she mentioned; her icon reads Busy. Peggy types a message instead.

“Dottie, I’m sorry to say that Angie and her boyfriend have broken up.” Thanks to Angie’s exclamation of “Don’t say his name,” she still doesn’t name him, even though she knows she doesn’t have to.

“We will likely have to cancel our double-date. But, if you want, you could come over to my house to watch a movie some other time? I’ll ask my mom about the exact date,” (she breaks off typing and puts in a Reminder on her computer to make sure she’ll really ask her mom) “and I’m sure I can make it happen.”

She doesn’t know what else to say. “I’m sorry” isn’t right because it’s not her fault, and besides, she’s already said it. “I really would like to date you” is awkward as hell. “I really would like to hang out with you” sounds like a friendzone, and that’s certainly not her intention. “I hope you’ll be able to, since I really love spending time with you,” she types. After looking at it for a while, she decides it’s good, and sends it.

*   *   *

Dottie, at her computer on the other side of the city, is nervous, though she hides it even from herself. Two messages have just pinged into her computer; one from Peggy and one from Dr. Johann Fennhoff.

She clicks on Fennhoff’s. Peggy’s can wait.

“How is the mission coming, Miss Emke?” Fennhoff asks, via messaging. Dottie closes her eyes for a moment, grateful he hasn’t initiated a video call.

Just as the thought finishes crossing her mind, the video-call icon pings. Dottie inwardly groans (only inwardly) but snaps herself out of it just as fast. She must not show emotion.

She accepts the call.

“Fine.”

Fennhoff pauses. “The mission is going fine? Then why have you not obtained results?”

“Give me time, Doctor.” She tilts her head and smiles.

“How much longer?”

“Miss Carter is formidable and my match in every way,” she replies coolly “I will still succeed.”

“You are the most powerful witch in Leviathan, Emke!”

“Underwood!” she half-snaps. “Not Emke!”

Fennhoff blinks. “So attached to your false name, Ida?”

“Dorothy. Dorothy, sir. Not Ida.” She calms herself down. “It’s a much more attractive name, and it suits me.” She arches her neck and looks at Fennhoff in a manner that’s somehow imperious even though he is taller than her on the screen. “Idas sound too weak, but Dorothies can be anyone.”

“You loved that movie too much, didn’t you?” he guesses. “I told her we should not have shown it to the young ones.”

Dorothy Gale. The first fictional character Dottie loved. She even wore braids, too.

“I assure you, Doctor, the character has only been a positive influence.”

Fennhoff swears.

“After all,” Dottie continues, “she came home at the end. She went back to the grey, and I do the same.”

“She went back,” Fennhoff reminds her, “to where she _belonged_.”

Dottie doesn’t need the reminder, but smiles anyway. “As will I. As I will continue to do. I have never failed a mission yet.”

“Very well, Miss _Underwood_.” He’s pleased at her articulation; he always likes the clever ones. Dottie smiles to further appease him. She does like the Doctor; he is incredibly intelligent, with a non-magical ability of hypnosis that would put many witches to shame. He is also one of the best trainers of Red Room witches. However, she does not like having to bow to anyone’s will. Often, their desires align. Sometimes, they don’t.

“If there is nothing more for you to report in the next month, I will visit Margaret Carter myself, or send another agent to do so.”

Dottie’s fingers tremble for half a second and she’s grateful Fennhoff cannot see. “Very well.”

Fennhoff signs off. A moment later, his profile reads “Offline.”

Dottie breathes the smallest sigh of relief and steps away from her computer, falling backwards onto her queen-sized hotel bed. The address in the school directory isn’t hers. The landline number, if anyone calls, is just her second cell phone’s number with a voicemail she recorded from the AT&T non-custom landline answering machine.

You can find anything on YouTube, really. Even the T&T non-custom landline answering machine.

America.

*   *   *

After a while, Dottie lifts herself off her bed to look at the message Peggy had left. She opens Skype again and clicks into her and Peggy’s conversation to see the small paragraph Peggy’d written.

“Dottie, I’m sorry to say that Angie and her boyfriend have broken up. We will likely have to cancel our double-date. But, if you want, you could come over to my house to watch a movie some other time? I’ll ask my mom about the exact date, and I’m sure I can make it happen. I really love spending time with you.”

Peggy is sweet. Dottie’s never had a romantic relationship; it was never possible, considering her life and her training, but, looking at the message, she gets an irrational stab of hurt. How can you miss something you never had?

And, though she violently suppresses it the second it flits across her consciousness, she wishes for a single heartbeat that she could really date Peggy Carter, could really love someone like that. Without missions. Without manipulation.

It’s a stupid desire, anyway, and once she suppresses it, it’s gone. Like Fennhoff said, she must focus.

Focus.  _ Focus.  _ The word, when used in conjunction with her thoughts on Fennhoff, brings back a memory. She steps backward and tries to blink it away, but it forces its way back. It’s sudden, how it comes on, and once it’s there, she’s as weak before it as a sandcastle in a seastorm. As weak as she was when it happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope 2017 treats you three times as well as 2016 does! If you want to talk to me for any reason, you can find me at gaygent-romanoff.tumblr.com


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fennhoff is a jackass, honestly

**Russia, circa 2009**

“Ida Emke, Dr. Johann Fennhoff wishes to speak with you for special training,” the intercom voice says. The ‘Ida Emke’ and ‘Johann Fennhoff’ are especially robotic, made up of disjointed syllables from the synthesized voice’s database. Ida feels oddly needled by that, but can’t exactly say why. Pressing her lips together in an act she tells herself isn’t nerves, she leaves her desk and exits the room, head straight and shoulders back.

The hallways are cold, but she doesn’t shiver. The goosebumps on her arms annoy her, but she makes no move to rub her hands along her arms to warm herself. To do so would be weak, she thinks, and she refuses to be that girl.

 

Fennhoff’s office is on the ground floor and guarded by two men in the uniform of the Russian army. Ida gives them a crisp nod as she walks by.

Before she opens the door, she quickly checks her reflection in the small handheld mirror older girls are allowed to carry. Girls older than seven are allowed certain luxuries, so, even though she’s still young, she’s taken to wearing red lipstick. It makes her smile seem sharper and her eyes more blue. She looks more dangerous with it on, and, though she would deny it, has grown very attached to it.

Deciding, in her childish way, that she looks perfectly professional, she places the mirror back in her pocket and opens the door, not knowing what to anticipate and preparing herself for anything from a barrage of knives and bullets to a sick, frail old man. 

 

To her surprise, what’s behind the door is far closer to the latter. Fennhoff looks up from one of the papers on his desk and smiles at her. “Miss Emke,” he observes. “Welcome.”

Ida smiles back, a cool, removed smile. Fennhoff nods approvingly. “Come sit.”

Ida does.

“Now, my dear-”

Ida reaches across the desk and grasps his wrist, flipping it backward and slamming it, hard, on the desk. He follows it; if he didn’t, he’d break his wrist. With her other hand, she slips a pen from the cup where he keeps them and presses the sharp tip into the flesh of his arm, right below his palm, the site of an artery that, when cut, could make him bleed out. She tilts her head. “Don’t call me dear.”

Johann yanks his hand away and she releases him. “Very well.”

He composes himself again while Ida looks on, amused. Fennhoff takes another minute for his heart to stop beating and reminds himself of what he’s here to do.

“Now, Miss Emke,” he says, his voice sharper, “I want you to focus on the last time you were happy. Victorious. Was it a sparring victory? A perfect spell?” His right hand starts to move rhythmically, back and forth along his silver, presumably wedding, ring. It’s soothing, somehow. “Find a memory, Ida, and  _ focus _ .”

Fennhoff’s voice is comforting, relaxing. Despite his calling her ‘dear,’ she finds she can trust him. He looks kind, benevolent, even. The thought of St. Nicholas crosses her mind.

So she relaxes slightly in her chair, lets tension out of her muscles, and tries to remember. Happiness is certainly not her default emotion. The last time she was happy,  _ happy _ , is hard to recall.

She decides to use the time the girls watched the Wizard of Oz, right when the movie broke into color and light. She lets the memory play back in her head, savoring it as she watches Fenhhoff’s finger on his ring.  
  


Fennhoff waits a few more moments and then continues. “Do you have it?” he asks, continuing to rub his ring back and forth. Ida’s eyes follow the movement of his fingers.

“Yes.” Her voice has gone softer, as if she’s in a dream.

“Now focus. Focus on that precise moment, that precise feeling of joy. You are back there, right…” he continues the rhythmic movement of his finger. Ida watches, feeling as if she’s getting farther and farther from her body. She calls up the image of Oz in her mind and imagines herself traveling there, all the way to the land of Oz itself.

“…now.”

Ida’s barely listening anymore. “Focus, focus,” he tells her, but she’s not truly listening. Instead, she’s stepping out of her Kansas house into a whole new world and seeing in color for the first time. She’s seeing the flowers of Oz, the blue sky, the brick roads, the munchkins.

His voice drifts back to her as if through water. “Are you there?”

“Yes.” Her voice is quieter than a newborn chick’s first cry, and, as Fennhoff watches her, her eyes are glassy and unaware. She’s far away in her head.

“Now I want you to take what’s nearest to you,” he tells her. “It will be a thin cylinder with a sort of nozzle on the end. Do you see it?”

Ida looks around the fantasy landscape. She could have sworn it wasn’t there before, but there is indeed a thin cylinder with a nozzle on the end lying next to her foot. A munchkin gestures to it eagerly, and she takes it in her hand and lifts it, turning it over and over to examine every angle. It’s oddly blurry, she realizes, as she holds it. As if it doesn’t quite belong in Oz.

“Now I want you to turn it on. You’ll know how. This is a magical device, Miss Emke, that will allow you to return here, to this happy moment, whenever you desire.”

Ida nods slowly. She turns on the device and holds it out in front of her. The munchkins start to move sideways and look at it as if she’s holding godlike power.

At the end of it, a golden glow starts to emanate. At the same time, as though from far away, Ida starts to feel heat on her face. She scrunches up her nose.

Fennhoff begins to speak again. “Cement yourself in the moment, Ida. Focus.  _ Focus _ .”

Ida focuses. The heat on her face disappears and Oz, which had gone wavy for a moment, solidifies.

“Now take the wand, for it is a wand, is it not?”

Ida looks and sees that it is indeed a wand. There seems to be something on the end – a nozzle? Did he say something about a nozzle? No; there’s no nozzle. It’s just a wand.

“Take the wand,” Yes, Ida realizes, it is for  _ certain _ only a wand, “and place it under or near your left arm.”

Ida places it in her right hand and slips it under her left hand. She feels heat there for a moment, but not from Oz. From somewhere else. From-

“Focus, Ida. Focus. Keep yourself in the moment, in your happiness.”

Ida tries. But a smell starts to find its way to her, again from somewhere far away. It smells like something’s burning. 

“Focus.”

But she can’t focus. There’s heat on her arm and she’s spiraling back and Fennhoff keeps telling her to hold on, to focus, but she can’t and she can’t and Oz is disappearing and her arm is burning and the flesh is burning and crisping and burning and she’s not holding a wand she’s holding a blowtorch and her skin is on fire and she’s burning and she’s  _ burning _ -

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I appreciate anyone who has stuck with the story all this time. Really, you mean the world to me. As always, comments are so appreciated, and you can reach me @gaygent-romanoff.tumblr.com


	13. Chapter 13

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie snaps herself back to the present, breathing hard and sweating. She hunches over in place for a moment, clutching her left arm in her right as if it’s still in pain, as if it’s still on fire. She curls her hand into a fist and presses it against her forehead, moving her knuckles back and forth across her face, making herself  _ hurt _ because hurt on your skin erases hurt in your head. She forces her breathing to steady, but it becomes hitched and ugly, tearing down her throat like sandpaper rips.

She tries to focus. She tries to control herself. It was in the past. And it helped her. It made her stronger. But the memory forces itself back, relentlessly attacking her brain, and she has no choice but to let it retake her.


	14. Chapter 14

**Russia, circa 2015**

Ida falls to the floor, clutching her arm. She flattens herself on top of it, trying to smother the fire. Tears are pouring down her face and the smell of burning skin and hair is everywhere, thick in the office, in her nose, in her mouth. The fine hair on her arm is no longer alight. But everywhere, all up and down her arm, from wrist to shoulder, is burned, twisted, scarred flesh.

She’s curled up on the floor, clutching her arm and crying, sobbing. It’s the worst pain she’s ever felt and she can’t think, can hardly breathe. Her arm is a crisp. It’s disgusting to look at. It’s not an arm. It’s meat.

“Heal yourself, Ida,” Fennhoff demands.

She can’t. She holds her arm closer and cries.

“Heal yourself, Ida.” Fennhoff gentles his voice into a mere suggestion. “The pain will go away. Focus on something else.”

He starts to rub his ring again. Ida turns her eyes up to him, his face and body blurry with her tears. But she can see the glint of his ring and his finger moving across it. A bit of the pain goes away as Ida watches the hypnotic motion.

Then she realizes what he’s doing and snaps away. “Get out of my head,” she hisses. “Stop.”

Fennhoff is impressed; Ida has been the first to resist his pain relieving.   
  


Ida scrambles back, tears still pouring out of her eyes, but silently now. She touches her arm and jerks her finger away with a hiss. She tries to lift it away from her. More tears pour from her eyes. It’s too much. It’s too much.

“Heal yourself, Emke.”

She finally starts to. It’s more survival instinct than any orders given. She wraps her hand gingerly around her wrist and concentrates, still trembling and crying from the pain.   
  


Slowly, the burns start to disappear. The black on the flesh becomes less jagged, retreats, and disappears, showing red, raw skin underneath. Then the red begins to vanish, slowly revealing bright pink skin.

“Almost there, Ida. Almost there.”

She’s shaking even harder now. Stars are swirling in her head and her vision, and her pain is being replaced by heady joy. The amount of power she’s using is phenomenal. But she pushes against the feeling of euphoria. Slowly, the shiny pink fades back to her normal pale tone.

Ida drops her arm against her side and shakes violently. Fennhoff stands there and watches as her eyes flutter shut. Ida crumples like Anya did, passing out on the cold marble floor.   
  


Fennhoff smiles, lifts the phone on his desk, and calls Madame G.

He speaks only two words. “Ida passed.”


	15. Chapter 15

**United States, Present-Day**

Peggy flips her computer screen shut and stands, stretching her arms up to the ceiling. Then she heads into her bathroom to clean herself up just a little before going over to Angie’s house.

She decides for some red lipstick, as well. She likes to look well put-together wherever she goes, as does Angie. Her t-shirt is fine as it is, she decides, and a black skirt is fine for any occasion.  

She opens her tube of lipstick – color 102, Sweet Dreams, and applies it gently. She dabs at her lips with a tissue and delicately throws it away. She gives a quick comb-through to her hair and puts everything she used back in their respective compartments. Organization is, of course, key.

Angie laughs at her for such philosophies. Peggy smile ruefully, thinking of the state of her bathroom – Angie claims that the way everything is organized makes sense to her, but to Peggy, it just seems like a wild excuse. Who on Earth, after all, keeps their comb next to their sink? It belongs, of course, in the shower, so one can comb their hair while the conditioner is in it for efficiency and silkier, nicer hair.

Peggy slides on her lowest heels and leaves her room, closing the door behind her. She passes her mom downstairs, who smiles and waves goodbye, takes the car keys and her purse, and leaves the house with the faint feeling of relief.

 

It’s a nice time of day, late afternoon, when the sky is just getting slightly darker but the sun isn’t quite starting to set. The temperature has ever-so-slightly dropped, but Peggy isn’t cold yet. If it comes to it, she can borrow Angie’s jacket on her way home.

She jerks open the door to her car and presses the button to start it. Her car is a fairly new Honda Civic, dented on one front fender (that was her fault, a few months ago, though she argued that the person who planted the tree in that inconvenient spot is really the one to blame) that she quite likes; it’s not the perfect vehicle, and the black interior is far too hot in summer, but it gets the job done.

She pulls out of the driveway and turns onto the road, switching the radio to the classical music station. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons spills out, and she cracks the windows.

 

Meanwhile, at her house, Angie switches on her CD player, wondering if she left any CDs inside. Her parents aren’t home, a fact that she didn’t tell Peggy, for whatever reason – they’re, for the next couple hours, out to dinner, since it’s their anniversary. Spending time with Peggy is exactly what Angie wanted to spend the evening doing, especially because of her breakup, so she’s impatient for Peggy’s car to pull up in front of her house.

Bubblegum Bitch by Marina and The Diamonds is the first song to pour out of the player and Angie realizes that she’s, unsurprisingly, forgotten to put her Electra Heart CD back in the drawer. Oh, well.

Angie’s dancing alone to Primadonna, the second track on the album, when Peggy arrives. She leaves her car, locks it, and heads up the steps to Angie’s house. She knocks on the door, hearing some music faintly past it, and smiles, recognizing how fitting the song is for Angie. In a few moments, the music stops and Angie, her hair ever-so-slightly disheveled, opens the door and smiles. “Hey, English!”

“Your parents let you play the music that loud?” Peggy teases, slipping along Angie into her living room. Angie laughs and closes the door behind her. “They’re not home, actually.” She shrugs and waves her hands in the air. “Anniversary special dinner.”

“Oh.” Peggy nods. “So they don’t actually let you blare your music like this?”

“Nah! They do.”

Peggy shakes her head in mock-disbelief. “You really  _ are _ a primadonna, Martinelli.”

“I don’t see why that’s a bad thing!” Angie plops backward onto her couch and pulls her iPad onto her lap. “Wanna watch a movie?”

“Sure.” Peggy flops next to her and immediately realizes she’s sitting on Angie’s remote. “Oops.”

“No prob.” Angie flicks off the CD player, takes the remote, and drops it on the coffee table in front of the coffee table in front of the TV. Peggy’s struck by how different Angie’s house is when she’s not hosting parties; the furniture is all in its correct spot, not shoved off to the sides to make a dance floor, and the TV is on its table rather than hiding in a closet so it doesn’t get broken. The couch doesn’t even smell like weed.

“Guess your house has recovered from last Friday night, huh?”

Angie shrugs. “Took some perfume and a broom and a lot of effort and  _ way _ too much sweat, but yeah.”

“You could have let us help you.”

“I was fine to do it on my own.”

“You’re a strange girl, Martinelli.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“Are you going to throw another party?”

“As a single lady? Nah, dude.” Angie signs onto her Netflix and looks up to make sure her iPad is Airplay-ing to her TV. It is, so she starts scrolling down to the recommended movies section. “Anything in particular you want to see?”

Peggy shakes her head. “You decide.”

Angie shrugs a shoulder and selects Clueless. “Isn’t that the one where the girl ends up with her adopted brother, or something?” Peggy asks.

Angie raises an eyebrow. “It’s based off a Jane Austen novel.”

“No way!”

Angie gives her a disbelieving look. “You didn’t know that? I thought you were, like, the  _ queen _ of literature!”

Peggy ignores the almost jealous ‘queen of literature’ bit. “I really hadn’t known. You’re kidding, right?”

“No! This is basically a fanfiction high-school AU of Emma, complete with an actor who looks exactly like an older Scott Lang.”

Peggy groans. Scott is a freshman who used to perpetually annoy her when they were both in middle school. “Oh god! Tell me  _ he’s _ not the love interest!”

Angie laughs wickedly. “He is!”

Peggy plops her head onto the back of the couch. “Ughhhhhh.”

Angie presses play. “You’re gonna love the movie. Don’t worry at all.”

 

Popcorn substitutes dinner, so Angie pops a bag, while Peggy refuses to watch even the opening credits without her friend. The word ‘Clueless’ sits on the screen, and Peggy analyzes the font, for lack of anything better to do.

Angie returns with the popcorn, almost overflowing a plastic orange bowl. She pulls a blanket off the floor and drops it over Peggy’s knees, pulling it over both of them. She rests the popcorn in Peggy’s lap. “After this, we do makeovers.”

“Alright,  _ alright _ .”

Peggy rests her head on her friend’s shoulder and falls asleep partway through the film. Angie looks over at her, considers moving away to let her lie down, and realizes she’d rather have Peggy next to her.

The movie is less fun with Peggy to laugh with her at the funnier parts, but at the same time, Angie wouldn’t trade the gentle, trusting pressure of Peggy’s head on her shoulder for anything.

*   *   *

When the movie’s over, Angie shakes Peggy awake again. “Wake up, sleepyhead. C’mon.”

Peggy doesn’t react, but Angie knows she’s awake now. “Pegs, it’s almost five-forty. Don’t you have to leave at, like, six?”

“Six thirty,” Peggy mutters sleepily. She squeezes her eyes shut. Angie rolls her eyes and shakes her awake again. “You’re no fun, Carter. Get up!”

Peggy arches her back against Angie and stretches upward towards the ceiling. She exhales massively and opens her eyes, for real.

“Okay, I’m awake. You said you wanted to do a makeover, or something?”

Angie shrugs. “Yeah, I was gonna. But, I mean, if you’d rather sleep, you can do that.”

“Two seconds ago you were the one waking me up. It’s a little late for that,” Peggy observes. 

Angie cracks a grin. “So, which do you want first? Lipstick?”

“Alright. If you insist.”

The two girls tromp upstairs to Angie’s room, where Angie’s bright pink makeup kit is already sitting on her bed. Angie points to a spot near the foot. “You sit there. Put your chin up; I have to get this lipstick off you first.”

Peggy’s eyes flutter shut as Angie, sitting cross-legged in front of her, gently sponges the red off, replacing it carefully with a thick coat  of shiny pink gloss. “There we go,” she says, capping the bottle. “Eyeshadow next? WAITDON’TSPEAKYOU’LLRUINEVERYTHING-”

She grasps Peggy’s wrist tightly for a moment and shoves her hand back down into her makeup kit, rooting around until her hand emerges, triumphant, with rose-colored eyeshadow.

_ Please let it not be pink _ , Peggy thinks, but doesn’t say anything per Angie’s request. When she sees the color, she rolls her eyes.

“Come on, English,” Angie laughs. “Pink suits you, I promise.”

“Maybe my face but not my personality,” Peggy says, unable to stop.

Angie pulls the eyeshadow brush off Peggy’s eyelid and audibly folds her arms. “Colors don’t have personality. Only what we project on them.”

“That was… oddly clever.”

“I’m going to pretend not to be offended by that. You don’t think I’m all that bright, do you, Peggy?

Peggy opens her mouth to deny it, and Angie laughs, a little forced. “I’ve got more brains than you think.”

She hums One Day More while adding the finishing touches. “You never wear pink, which is why I’m doing this,” she remarks.

“Stop torturing me,” Peggy murmurs through almost-closed lips.

Angie smirks. “Almost done.”

She adds a thin line of black eyeliner and brushes on some mascara, her hands as steady as a surgeon’s from having done this so many times. “Now, open your eyes and look up,” she commands, taking the brush to the ends of Peggy’s lashes. “Aaaaaaaand you’re good. Congratulations, pink princess.”

Peggy rolls her eyes. “Never speak again.”

“What? England? Royalty? Princess? It even has alliteration. Come on. You know you love it, pink princess.”

“Well,” Peggy sighs, “I suppose it’s not the worst thing I’ve ever been called.”

Angie gives a sort of saddish smile that immediately vanishes. “I think you’d better go; it’s already 6:15. But before you leave, I’ve  _ got _ to take a photo of you.”

“Whyyyyy,” Peggy groans.

“Because if I told anyone at school that you wore pink lipstick and eyeshadow, nobody would believe me, obvs. Come on. Just  _ one _ photo.”

One becomes several, but Peggy leaves the Martinelli household smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look. I don't know how to say this, but I've been putting in a lot of work and effort into this story, crafting it as well as I can. I've only gotten a handful of kudos and not very many comments, either. I guess I'd just like to ask you, if you feel so inclined, to share this story with others, and please leave comments.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's a bit of a time-jump for Ida Emke here.

**Russia, circa 2016**

Ida Emke sits down at her desk. The movie is about to start; it’s  _ The Wizard of Oz  _ again. The girls are to watch it and speak along with the subtitles. Ida is good at English by now -- most of the girls her age (around 15) are -- but her silent spirit still falters and hitches when Dorothy enters Oz, every time.

The movie, as it has every other time they’ve seen it, breaks into spectacular color. The color in movies is nothing new for them, of course, but the black-and-white of Dorothy’s Kansas was matched so well with the colors of the poorly-named Red Room itself that they hadn’t expected any color in the movie at all. It looked just like their world, but more open, stormy, and desolate.

_ Is this America? _ Ida wonders, as she watches the closing grey.  _ Is this where I am to go, someday? _

She knows, logically, that the country is in color and that it can’t be all farmland, of course. But from seeing the movie so many times, that’s now she thinks of America for a while; as open and stormy and grey as the opening few minutes and closing scenes of the Wizard of Oz.

 

The Madames are watching the girls, to make sure they are really speaking, but for Ida, it’s mechanical. Instead, she’s watching the Tin Man, somehow the kindest for having no heart at all. The Cowardly Lion, who turns out to be brave. The Scarecrow, the weakest link who she somehow ends up liking. The actual Wizard, clever enough to deceive humans but caught by, of all things, a dog. The Wicked Witch of the West, endlessly malicious, brought down by nothing other than a well-placed bucket of water. Glinda, glittering, ethereal, and useless. If she’s so powerful, why doesn’t she know Oz is a fraud? And then there’s Dorothy herself, the hero, a child just like Ida herself is. There’s something about the movie that is undeniably powerful, despite its clear age. 

Still, when she’s finished with the film, she feels vaguely sick, as if there’s something else in what they’re shown that doesn’t come from the movie. It’s a common feeling, prevalent every time the girls watch, and it fades quickly, so she doesn’t think of it much. Thinking at all isn’t encouraged here.

Then the girls go outside, as they do every time they have completed watching a film. It’s cold, and they are only dressed in shorts and tank tops. Ida doesn’t shiver; her magic keeps her warm, running through her blood like a second skin, a tiny energy boost that keeps her from shivering. She holds her head up at the front of the line.

There are no sparring matches anymore; the girls are too old now, too valuable to waste. Instead, some witches are about to get their first foreign-country assignments. They are capable now; capable of killing and capable of travelling to anywhere all alone.

The older girls resolve themselves into a semicircle behind the younger girls, who stand in a loose clump before Madame G. The other instructors ring the clearing, dressed in the same color ice-white that kills hedges in winter.

“Alina and Ivanna,” says Madame G., her eyes as  sharp as the burnt orange tip of a candle flame. “In two months, when you both turn 12, you will travel to Estonia and, together, incapacitate Aleksandra Tamm. Madame K. will be your supervisor.”

Alina and Ivanna turn to each other and nod. Madame K. steps forward and places a hand on their shoulders, leading them back inside. They follow dutifully; incapacitation missions aren’t hard, though Ida has heard horror stories, whispered at night under security cameras, of the girls who never came back.

“Irina, you will begin special training to become a new instructor at this institution. You have absorbed your training well.”

Compliments are rare, and Irina’s eyes flash with pride.

Then Madame G. turns to Ida. “Miss Emke.”

Ida tilts her head to the side, ready to receive instruction.

“You will begin a tracking mission.”

Those, she has heard, are long; they can take months She bows her head; to be chosen for one is a great honor.

“Dr. Fennhoff will be your supervisor. You have learned much from each other.”

Dr. Fennhoff, standing on Madame G.’s right, steps forward.

“He will tell you about your target. All other unassigned girls, follow me to Defense.”

Ida mentally runs through the girls chosen. All were victors of sparring matches. 

The victims’ names run through her head. Natalia, Yelena, and, most recently, Eva. Strong, promising witches, who had only died from not being able to fully control their magic.  _ Had it been anything else _ , Ida thinks,  _ it would be Irina, Alina, and Ivanna buried under. _

Then Ida remembers Anya. She then tries to forget, a reflex coming from her body as much as her mind. Her fists clench, as if she can physically beat the memory into submission. She pushes the name away, filled with a cloying sense of dread, as if a thorned hand has pushed its way from her stomach to wrap around her throat. For a moment, the cool red eyes of a wolf in the snow flash across her mind, and she feels even more guilty.

Mentally compressing her emotions into a tiny grey cube, she follows Dr. Fennhoff into his office, out of the cold and into white hallways. Her footsteps always echo too loudly.

 

Fennhoff settles himself behind his desk and gives Ida a long, piercing look.

She has been training with Fennhoff for years now, and her mind is completely resistant to hypnotism. She can heal her flesh in heartbeats, and is near impervious to being burned. She can throw things across the room, summon objects she’s seen before to herself in a heartbeat, crack concrete by staring at it long enough. She can alter things she can’t even see, and one of her favorite pastimes is to relocate WiFi signals and watch the Madames splutter as they tap at their phones like so many drab grey birds pecking. Sometimes, she cuts open her own skin with her eyes and knits it back together; that’s a good distraction.

“Your target is Margaret Elizabeth Carter. She has recently moved to Griffith High School, an all-girls college prep school located in Syracuse. She will want to make new friends. Perhaps a new lover.”

“Is that all you will tell me?”

Fennhoff glares. “Her boyfriend, Steven Rogers, passed away from complications from a car accident approximately a year ago. Her family moved soon after, after Brexit was decided. They have liberal voting patterns. Margaret is known as Peggy to her acquaintances and friends, and she has been known to be romantically involved with both boys and girls, as well as one teenager who is neither.”

Ida nods, committing it to memory. She wonders how they know. She always wonders how they know. But it doesn’t matter.

“How do you advise I proceed?”

“Track her magic signal.”

All witches who don’t know they are magical release a signal, like a ping on a radar. Since they don’t consciously control or direct their magic, it just sort of seeps off of them. Once a witch comes into control of her abilities, she can manipulate her energy signal and become untraceable. But the Red Room, with all witches working together, can still find just about anyone.

“Tell me how to find her, sir.”

“ _ You _ find her.” Fennhoff reaches into his desk and pushes a piece of paper toward Ida. The face staring back at her is a biracial girl, flawlessly red-lipsticked, with sparking eyes and the hint of a smile. Her hair is curled oddly formally, held in clips away from her face. 

“And why doesn’t somebody else take this mission?” Ida takes the photo and meets the eyes of the girl in it, more curious about her than she lets on.

“We think you are the right one. Aren’t you lesbian?”

A sliver of disgust laces the word ‘lesbian,’ and Ida’s eyes flick towards the ground. “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Put that to good use. Now, I want you to try and track her magic signal. You need to get to know her, get  _ inside her head _ before you take her down.”

Ida nods. Dr. Fennhoff nods back. He pulls out three more photos and leaves the room, letting Ida focus.

She holds the first photograph, the one of Margaret’s face, out in front of her, memorizing the image. Against her will, she feels a sort of kinship with the girl. Perhaps it’s their age, or how their eyes both seem to glitter, or something as simple as the lipstick she wears. Or the fact that they both like girls. Ida shoves the distractions from her mind; there’s no place for them here.

Sighing, she closes her eyes. The photo seems to change texture under her gripping fingers, becoming almost like flesh, and, eerily, the flat paper bunches up, curves away, settling into the hollows and points of Margaret’s face. She’s successfully reached some part of her.

Keeping her eyes closed, Ida runs her hands over Margaret’s face, which has grown textured under her fingers. “Now where are you,” she hisses, gritting her teeth. There’s a scrap of lip-skin between her teeth that she accidentally bites down on, but she doesn’t even notice as the taste of blood fills her mouth.

She mentally reaches through the picture, down, down down.  _ America _ registers.  _ Northern America. Eastern America. _ Like someone honing in on a GPS signal, Ida’s awareness of her target shrinks, until there’s only one city she could be in. Syracuse. Where in Syracuse? Somewhere close.

Gasping, Ida is forced back into her own head. She shakes her head; she failed. They already knew she was in Syracuse; there’s nothing else she can tell them.

Fennhoff comes back in. Ida clenches her fists, bracing herself for a punishment. “No new information. I just got Syracuse.”

“Weak.”

Ida blinks. “Well, I’d like to see you try it.”

The defiance floors her; the words had just slipped out, without her even thinking. She flinches infinitesimally backward, but Fennhoff only nods, uncharacteristically silent. “We’ll have you on a plane in two weeks. Until then, find  _ everything _ you can about her. Know her inside and out. You have our hackers at your disposal. Before you reach New York State, you have to know not only her head but her heart as well.”

Ida lifts her chin.

“You may take a name of your choosing for this mission,” Fennhoff says, a tiny, good-natured smile at the edge of his lips.

One side of Ida’s mouth flicks up. This is her second-favorite part; the only thing that’s better is a successful completion. “Dorothy,” she says, Judy Garland’s face still fresh in her mind.

“Dorothy what?”

Ida thinks back to the bookstore in Moscow, the novel she’d picked up on her way in. She hadn’t paid much attention to it, as she’d been watching a young woman browse, preparing to kill her later, but she did catch the word Underwood somewhere along, along with Annabeth, Percy, Grover.  _ The name of a satyr _ , she thinks. She knows nothing of the character, but she likes the name.

“Underwood.”

“Dorothy Underwood?”

Ida inclines her head coolly. Fennhoff types the name into his phone.

“Two weeks,” he says.

Ida recognizes his tone, stands, and leaves the room.

“Dorothy Underwood,” she whispers to herself, and smiles.


	17. Chapter 17

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie jerks herself backward out of her memory for the final time, severing its reaching fingers with a snap. She’s realizes she’s again curled tightly, reflexively, around her wrist, shaking. She’s unwilling to stop, but some outside part of the shreds that are her mind realize her weakness. With monumental strength, she forces herself out flat again.

Staring at the ceiling is something Dottie is used to doing. She could only sleep on her back -- still can only sleep on her back -- and white blankness is no stranger to her. Still, she feels like she’s drifting.

It’s an odd sensation. Not something she’s ever felt. She feels like Dorothy -- she is Dorothy -- in a faraway, colorful land.

But she’s not Dorothy, is she? She’s the Tin Man. She has no heart.

_ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz _ . She never finished that book; she had to put it down when Whitney had entered the library.

Conjuring an entire book is not something she’s able to do when she hasn’t read its entirety yet. So she’ll have to wait until school the next day to retrieve it. She looks towards the window, lapsing into thought again.

The thought of herself as the Tin Man is uncomfortable, jarring, and worse, she can’t make it go away. She used to be so good at controlling her thoughts, at only thinking what she wanted to--

_ No _ , she realizes, and her stomach pitches.  _ I used to be good at only thinking what  _ **_they_ ** _ wanted me to.  _

_ I might as well not have a brain. _

Dottie groans and turns her head to the side. “Wake up,” she tells herself in Russian, placing a hand against her head. “Wake up, Dorothy.” She turns and holds her arm against the bedpost, about where it would be if she were cuffed in. Immediately, feeling the wood against the back of her wrist, she feels better.

When she blinks her eyes back open, she’s more lucid. She’s back to controlling her thoughts, her actions; she’s sure of it. But then why is there water in her eyes?

She goes to her computer, flipping it open to type a message to Fennhoff, to convince him beyond a doubt that everything is under control.

Her eyes are only on her keyboard; every move is automatic. She starts to type, in English, because he is staunch that she is not only fluent but more advanced than the average native speaker. She throws in as many big words as she can, but her hands are shaking as she types. More annoying water fills her eyes, blurring the keys in front of her. She can’t even see what she’s writing, but she knows she will make no typographical errors. She tries to blink unshed tears away, shocked at her own fragility. Because though she denies it, she will miss Peggy’s eyes, miss her smile, and she knows she will replay the life leaving her body in her mind, over and over, for years, no matter how she kills her.

Some part of her does love Peggy. Some deep, repressed part, something not twisted into submission. She’s kept the girl in her mind for the past four months, learning every detail there is to know about her, tracing her ancestry, stalking her Facebook, her snapchat and instagram, even, with help from Red Room hackers, her personal email. She memorized Peggy’s attitudes, her gait, her speech patterns. Chances are Dottie knows more about her than she does about herself. None of it matters, of course.

“Dr. Fennhoff. I assure you I have been doing everything in my power to incapacitate and kill Margaret Carter. She has formed an attachment to me, as I have successfully cultivated it. Her friend Angela Martinelli has no suspicions, and neither does Carter herself. She is mentally very strong, and her power is very present, though she is, currently, wholly unaware. I will succeed, I assure you, and I will make you and the Red Room and all of Leviathan proud. These missions take time, sir, but you have my word that Carter will not survive the month. Yours sincerely, Ida Emke.”

She sends the message. All she had to do was flick open her screen and type and hit enter; the most recent conversation she opened was with Fennhoff, after all.

Without giving her computer a second glance, she falls again onto her bed. In a half-hour, she’s asleep. Her first time in her living memory without the handcuff, and she doesn’t even notice.

She doesn’t notice, either, that she’d forgotten something crucial. Though the most recent call she had was with Fennhoff, she had opened Peggy’s message about the date cancellation after that call had ended. She’d just sent the message to the very person it was about.


	18. Chapter 18

**The sky, circa 2016**

Ida stares out the window, watching the ocean below her. Her breath is caught low in her throat. It’s her first time on a plane, and she takes in the water below her with hungry eyes, her fingers curved against the glass. Her breath keeps misting the plastic window up, so she holds it, watching as clouds fade in and out across the water.

It just goes on and on. She watches for what seems like hours.

“Is this your first plane ride?” asks the woman next to her in Russian, startling Ida back to the flying metal cylinder she’s in. 

Ida stares at her in a stupor for a second. Then, she speaks. “Yes.”

“Are you flying by yourself?”

Ida can’t imagine for the life of her why the woman is still talking. “Yes, madam.”

The woman cracks a smile at being called “madam.” “Do you like it?”

**_Like_ ** _ it? _

“Yes, madam.”

The woman smiles and turns away, re-adjusting her head on her neck pillow and closing her eyes. Ida watches the shape of her face and the tight curls that tuck themselves behind her ears. She leans forward to look at the man on the other side of her, looking at his features, at his tie, how his skin sags slightly around his collar.  _ They’re people _ , she realizes, and while she’d known it before, it hits her strongly then.  _ Just like me. Just like Margaret. _

She surgically removes Margaret from her thoughts and turns back to the window, but clouds have obscured the ocean.


	19. Chapter 19

**United States, Present-Day**

Peggy is arguing with Jack Thompson, one of her all-time least favorite people, over Skype when Dottie’s message comes in. She’s back at her house, comfortable, the memories of her time at Angie’s soft and recent in her mind.

“hey Peggy,” the conversation had started. “guess what I read today.”

Peggy had, unfortunately, taken the bait. “What is it, Jack?”

“An article that said boys were better at math than girls, physiologically. I was wondering what you, a ‘feminist,’ think of that.”

Peggy groans out loud and starts typing. “I’m surprised you even know the word ‘physiologically,’ Jack. I suspect whatever ‘article’ you read is full of sexist hogwash, and I guarantee you it was written by a man.”

“well, so what if it was? that doesn’t mean it’s wrong.”

“I don’t have time for this, Jack. You’re an asshole.”

“oh very mature.”

“Says the person who hopped into my messages literally JUST to taunt me.”

“alright, so you think the article is bullshit. fine. how about how so few girls go into stem fields? you’ve got to admit they’re worse-suited to it.”

“I’d like to see you say this to my face. It’s not encouraging, the attitude people have to girls in STEM. Look at the news. Every month or so, it’s the news of a woman who contributed huge strides to the fields of science and math, who has died receiving little to no credit for all the amazing work she did. Have you heard of Margaret Hamilton? Flossie Wong-Staal? Rosalind Franklin? Hedy Lamarr?”

A message from Dottie pings in as she types, but she ignores it, intent on completing her paragraph.

“I hadn’t even heard of Katherine Johnson before Hidden Figures. It’s pathetic. Women have created amazing things, yet nobody knows. It sends a very clear message, and that message is NOT that girls can’t create amazing things; it’s that you may be never be credited for years of phenomenal work.”

“Hedy Lamarr? she’s hot. wasn’t she in the world’s first sex scene or something?”

“She was a scientist and inventor who laid the groundwork for WiFi, Bluetooth, and GPS, way back in the 1940s.”

“your so full of bull, carter.”

Jack signs off, and Peggy rolls her eyes, ashamed she let him have the last word. “Don’t encourage him,” she mutters. Still, she can’t resist typing “YOU’RE*” before leaving the conversation. Exhaling angrily at the horrendous grammar, she clicks on Dottie’s message.

“Dr. Fennhoff. I assure you I have been doing everything in my power to incapacitate and kill Margaret Carter. She has formed an attachment to me, as I have successfully cultivated it. Her friend Angela Martinelli has no suspicions, and neither does Carter herself. She is mentally very strong, and her power is very present, though she is, currently, wholly unaware. I will succeed, I assure you, and I will make you and the Red Room and all of Leviathan proud. These missions take time, sir, but you have my word that Carter will not survive the month. Yours sincerely, Ida Emke.”

Peggy doesn’t know what to think, the first time she reads it. Though she dismisses it as fake, a joke, a slow chill eats its way up her spine.

Dottie hasn’t sent anything else. Peggy weighs her options.

Either it’s real, and Dottie’s out to kill her, or it’s a very well-worded joke.

_ Don’t be stupid. Of course it’s a joke. _

She moves to type a response, but stops. Her fingers twitch towards a, “hah, hah, very funny,” landing and almost pressing down keys, but again, they stop. Peggy re-reads the message and pulls back from her computer.

Every instinct in her is telling her it’s real. There’s a strange, pushing bubble of emotion inside her, something that doesn’t even seem to come from her. 

She’s considered that it’s a joke. The most likely choice. But the other one bears thinking about, too.

“She is mentally very strong, and her power is very present, though she is, currently, wholly unaware.” 

“If it’s real, I have magic,” says Peggy, matter-of-factly, to her computer screen.

The bubble inside her seems to grow as soon as she says so. The same bubble that’s telling her it’s real, that Dottie is a danger, pushes upward from instincts that had been there, buried deep, ever since she met Dottie that one fateful night and their skin had sparked painfully when they’d touched.

Peggy lifts her hand in front of her face and stares at it, as if willing it to start glowing, to summon a flame, to do anything. It just sits there, same as it always was, her fingers, her palm, her hand. Nothing strange about it.

She turns it over, growing more and more sure that the message is fake.  _ Come on, Peggy _ , she tells herself.  _ Don’t be ridiculous. _

Still, she can’t let her suspicions go. Following the strange little bubble of instinct inside her, Peggy tightens the muscles in her hand. Her fingers curl, claw-like. For a moment, nothing happens. Then, creeping up from under her fingernails, comes a tiny reddish glow.

Peggy kicks out instinctively, pushing her chair backward and almost falling onto the floor. She grasps her wrist whitening her knuckles, staring at her hand as she wills the glow to get larger. It turns the same crimson red as her favorite lipstick, creeping like smoke out of her fingernails and collecting like mist in the palm of her hand.

Peggy shakes her head, disbelieving, as the magic sits there, swirling. It feels right, like something she didn’t know was caged had just broken free.

She raises her hand in front of her face and closes her eyes, blowing across her palm. The red light flickers, but unlike a flame, doesn’t go out. She turns her hand over and flicks her fingers.

A small flash of red light shoots from her fingers or the spaces between them, splashing onto her bedroom wall and leaving a tiny singe mark.

Peggy races to the wall, plastering herself onto it, staring at the tiny grey circle. She rubs it with her finger, unconsciously letting the magic fade, and watches as the tiny bits of ash fall away.

“Amazing,” she breathes, pulling her hand back to her face. The red is gone, and she scrunches her face and shakes her hand frantically, trying to make it come back. Nothing happens. She stretches her hand into a clawlike shape again, but no glow peeks up over her nails.

She exhales gently, feeling a tiny thread of the euphoria Dottie had told her about.

Dottie.

Dottie, her enemy?

Magic bubbles back over her hands, liquid now, and Peggy bites down on a building scream. She clamps one hand over the other but the red crawls up, defying gravity to sliter in tendrils up her arm.

“Stop,” she hisses, and it retreats, soaking back under her fingernails.

“Do you think I can convince her not to hurt me?” Peggy asks nobody in particular, her hand falling back against her side.

The magic inside her is silent.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SHIT i forgot this one was so short! i gotta make it up to you guys (and by you guys I mean the two people who are actually reading this). Tell you what -- I'll post the next chapter in a couple of days instead of next week.

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie, many miles away across the city, blinks open her eyes. 

Peggy’s magic signal is flashing wildly, trying to break against the shield Dottie’d placed over her magic to hide it from other witches. “Shit!” Dottie shouts, flying to her computer and frantically typing in her password. Her hands are shaking and her instincts tell her the mistake she made. A mistake that’s irrevocable; if Peggy’s awakened her magic, it means she must have trusted the message enough to try. And a witch’s intuition is never wrong, so Peggy must now know Dottie’s after her.  _ Shitshitshitshitshit _ becomes Dottie’s mantra. She clenches her teeth in anger. 

Then she notices a message from Peggy has pinged in.

“Ha, ha! Funny joke,” it reads.

Dottie squints at the message.  _ Is Peggy lying? She must be. _

But if that’s the way Peggy wants to play it, that’s fine with Dottie. She’ll meet up with her at school, and she’ll be ready. They’ll both be.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY SO HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) AND THIS HERE IS, I GUESS, MY LAME PRESENT -- AN EARLY UPDATE. GOODBYE.

**United States, Present-Day**

“Peggy!” shouts Dottie, waving frantically to her across the field. Peggy whirls, re-shoulders her backpack, and gives Dottie the biggest glare she can muster. “That won’t work anymore.”

“Ah,” says Dottie, her entire stance changing. “So you know where we stand.”

“How’d you find me?”

“Been tracking you.” It’s an easy, offhand response.

Peggy nods.

“So?” Dottie asks again.

Peggy almost smiles at the absurdity of it all. Her pulse is thumping and she’s terrified out of her wits, but some part of her mind is completely lost in the strange hilarity of it all. Peggy finally finds someone else to fall in love with after Steve, someone radiant and beautiful, and she turns out to be a murderous, magical witch.

“So,” Peggy replies, turning and heading into the woods bordering the school. It’s a calculated move, since it forces Dottie to follow her. “I guess we both know.” She flicks her fingers and a red glow comes to the tips of them.

Dottie laughs and waves her hand nonchalantly. A flash of pale-blue light encircles Peggy’s red and snuffs it like a candle. “Good try, Peg.”

They continue until they’re hidden from the school. The second they are, Dottie kicks out, hitting Peggy right in her spine and bending her over. Peggy falls forward, catches herself, and stands, facing off against her. She tries to bring her magic back, but it’s gone. Dottie can sense the effort and laughs. “Well, should we begin?”

She stands and dips into a bow. Wind picks up all around her. 

“Wait,” says Peggy, keeping her voice careful.

Dottie raises an eyebrow.

“I don’t want to fight you.”

“That makes… One of us. I’ve been waiting for a good battle. Haven’t had one since…”

Anya’s face flickers across Dottie’s mind and she jerks back as if someone has hit her forehead with a mallet. Then, instantly, she’s standing upright, flames flickering at the tips of her fingers.

Wind blows around her in a circle, starting to flatten the grass. It starts to crisp at the bottom, tiny embers poking through the green. Not enough to make a crop circle, but maybe getting close.

“Oh, I don’t want to do that,” laughs Dottie suddenly, a laugh as sharp as shattered glass and equally as broken. The grass abruptly stops burning.

That’s when Peggy makes her move. She stands, lifts her chin, and meets Dottie’s eyes. “You can fight Dr. Fennhoff,” she says carefully, unclenching her fingers one by one. Dottie’s breeze plays with Peggy’s curls and she fights the urge to push her hair out of her face, needing to keep Dottie’s eyes on hers. “You don’t have to fight me.”

“You’re trying to change me, Peg. How  _ fucking quaint _ .” Dottie spins in a circle, a move that would look silly if not for her rage-filled expression and the wind she’s summoned around her. The wind gathers itself back and rushes out forward, blowing Peggy almost off her feet, and she skids backward along the ground.

“You can fight them! You can fight it!” Peggy protests, trying to get back to a balanced stance as the tempest around Dottie grows.

“No!” Dottie spits, snapping finally. “You can’t! You can’t just wave your fingers and magically undo  _ years _ of being told to think one way!” She inhales and starts to shake with rage and the building power inside her. “Girls like you, with silver spoons and perfect skin.... You expect everything to come to you so  _ easily _ .” Her voice grows thick with spite, hatred, and obsession, the controlled rage and suppressed jealousy finally bubbling over. “Girls who grow up handcuffed to their bed every night,” she thrusts her left wrist forward at Peggy, revealing a thick brown bruise, “Only learn  _ fear _ .”

And air rushes out from around her and Peggy is thrown abruptly backward again. Dottie throws her arms out to her sides and screams, bending over. An eruption is building and Peggy knows, somehow instinctively, that if it gets out, it’ll devour Dottie. Her words -- Zero Matter, dimensional rift, black crack -- flash through her mind in seconds. But that doesn’t tell her how to prevent it.

Time to go back to her old strategy. Throw a punch.

_ But how? _

She remembers something else in a flash; Dottie, all those days ago, pushing herself up over the fence and landing, slowly. Something had borne her up; the wind.

Peggy reaches out behind her and grasps the air with both hands, thrusting herself back into it. She urges it to push her and it does, sending her careening through the air towards the impending explosion from Dottie.

She crashes into her at about chest-height, sending them both tumbling onto the ground.

Dottie lands with a thump, making a tiny grunt, the softest sound Peggy has ever heard from her.  Immediately, with a massive thunderclap of energy displaced, the air around them is perfectly, eerily still.

Peggy frantically starts checking Dottie’s face, pulling her hair aside and searching for evidence of a crack. There’s nothing, so she moves her hands down Dottie’s arms, turning her limp fingers over and scanning the exposed part of her legs. No cracks anywhere; Dottie’s clean.

When she looks back at Dottie’s face, her eyes are staring up at her and glittering. She’s conscious again.

“Why’d you do it,” she croaks, confused. Her fingers twitch; she’s utterly dazed. “Why’d you stop me?”

“Because I’m not afraid of you,” Peggy replies simply, shifting the rest of the way off of her.

Dottie shakes her head, still lying on her back on the ground. Her curls are a mess, matted and ugly, and Peggy’s never seen her look so weak. There’s a red scrape across her cheekbone from when she landed and skidded across the ground, and Peggy realizes guiltily Dottie broke her fall when she landed on top of her.

“That’s not a reason, Peg.”

“Maybe it is.”

Dottie shakes her head again, pulling herself into a sitting position. “I have to go.”

“I can’t let you.”

Dottie cocks her head to the side and grins. “You can’t stop me.”

Peggy reaches forward and grasps Dottie’s hand with her strongest grip. “I won’t let Leviathan have you back.”

Dottie shakes her head. “I’m not going back to Leviathan.”

“You said-”

“Going back to them would be suicide. They would kill me painfully.”

“Dottie-”

“Actually, they’d have one of the younger witches do it. Teach them to murder young and they never learn right from wrong.”

“Dottie-”

“It’s too late for me, Peggy. Don’t you  _ understand _ ?”

“Dottie, it’s never too late!”

“Yes it is.” Dottie closes her eyes, her disoriented look fading and being replaced by anger. “You are  _ good _ , Peggy,” she mutters in disgust. “Pure heart, good soul. I was like you, once. In another world, I could have  _ been _ you. Your life could have been  _ mine _ . I used to be  _ so _ jealous of girls like you. I would have done anything to walk like you, to talk like you.” She’s seething, rage flickering beneath the surface of her piercing eyes. “But now, I can be anybody I want.”

She slowly starts to shift. Her matted blonde curls flatten slowly, eerily, into dark, straight hair. Her red lipstick disappears. “What should I be next? An S.S.R. schoolgirl?” Her face continues to change, widening. Her lipstick reapplies itself, her hair grows lighter and curly, her skin tone changes, and her eyes turn kindly brown. Peggy jerks backward; Dottie has turned into an exact replica of herself. “Wha-”

Dottie jerks sideways, clasping onto one of the many rocks lying in the grass. Before Peggy can react, she knocks it into the side of her head and watches her crumple. She drops her Peggy disguise; the magic she’s used is close to overwhelming her. She scambles to her feet, reeling back from Peggy’s still body. She grasps her under the shoulders and drags her out from the forest so that somebody will find her. Then she takes off running, back into the pine forest where she first fled Whitney Frost.  
  


From the cover of the trees, she lifts the cover she’d been placing over Peggy’s magic. Whitney Frost, if she’s still here, will find Peggy and think she’s the witch she’s been seeking. Turning, Dottie slips away into the forest, half-aching in a way she can’t describe. Peggy did things to her she can’t for the life of her explain. She was Dottie’s obsession, lover, and, for a shining moment, almost… friend.

She remembers the ice-cream. She remembers Angie laughing and Peggy grinning, her sunglasses catching and reflecting the light.

“It’s too late for me,” she’d said. But was it? Was it really?

Still, she wasn’t sticking around.

  
  
As she heads back into the forest, someone discovers Peggy’s still form.


	22. Chapter 22

**United States, Present-Day**

It’s Angie that finds Peggy in the grass, not Whitney. It’s Angie, coming to school early to meet with Krzeminski, who runs her fingers over Peggy’s arms, legs, and face, checking for injuries as Peggy did for Dottie. 

“Oh, god, she’s breathing,” Angie exhales in complete relief. “Oh, my god.” She shifts Peggy’s body into survival position she learned at a Red Cross camp her father made her go to.  “Peggy, wake up,” she says firmly, authoritatively. “Peggy. Wake. Up.”

She looks at the sky and groans. “Come on, English!”

She bends back down over Peggy and runs her fingers into Peggy’s hair. Shifted in survival position, her head is visible from another angle. Angie’s fingers come away sticky with blood.

“Shit.”

She turns around and sprints for the school, wishing she had another person to guard her friend’s body. She pledges to be back as soon as she possibly can.   
  


As soon as she reaches the school doors, she bursts through them and sprints for the nurse’s office on the lower floor, hoping Violet is already there. She tears down and around the spiral staircase, knocking on the door five times in quick succession and entering without waiting for a Come In.

Violet, the nurse, looks up at her curiously. “What is-”

“Peggy’s hurt!” Angie shouts. “She’s hurt really badly and she’s bleeding!”

“What happened?”

Angie thinks of the rock next to Peggy’s head. “I think she passed out and hit her head on a rock.”

Violet nods swiftly, fully professional now. “Show me where she is.”

Angie sprints out the door, up the stairs, and out into the school field close to the border of the forest. For a heart-stopping moment she thinks Peggy’s gone, but she realizes that she’s looking too far off to the left. Slightly dizzy from her running, she points to Peggy’s spot in the grass.

Violet comes behind her, carrying antibacterial spray and bandages. When she sees Peggy’s still form, she gasps.

Immediately, she crouches over Peggy and, with her fingers, pulls some of the hair away from the head wound. She sprays the antibacterial solution over the gash and deftly starts to wrap it with bandages. 

Another person might have brought the smaller bandages, thinking dramatic Angie was overreacting, but Violet knows it’s better to be safe than sorry.

“She doesn’t drink,” Angie starts to say, looking for something like a broken bottle in the grass. Her mind is pulling up torn ribbons of stories, trying to find something that makes sense. “Do you think a pinecone hit her head? I don’t know what made her fall. Do you think-”

She lifts the rock and holds it above the wound on Peggy’s head. “Did someone throw it at her?”

Violet shakes her head. “I don’t know. Did you see anyone else,  _ anyone _ near her?”

Angie shakes her head. “No.”

Violet nods. She just finishes wrapping Peggy in the bandages and pulls out her cellphone, calling the nearest hospital. “Angela, stay here,” she says, holding her phone away for a moment. I’m going to talk to Principal Fry. Margaret needs to go to the hospital.”

Angie nods, shakily. “I -- okay.”

Violet scans Peggy’s body up and down. “Did you put her in survival position?”

Angie nods. “Did I do it right?”

“Good job. You might have just saved her life.”

The thought makes Angie uncomfortable. A life is a debt. She doesn’t want anyone to owe her that much, least of all, her Peggy.

She squats in the grass next to Peggy. “I’ll watch her.”

Violet nods and jogs away, asking for an ambulance. Her voice is not urgent, so Angie deduces that Peggy’s condition isn’t critical. Relief floods her as she watches Violet go. Then she drops her gaze back to Peggy and starts to talk. She knows she can’t hear her. But maybe something will get through.  _ That’s how it works in movies, anyways. _

“So. You’re gonna be okay. Um… head wounds bleed a lot. I learned that at Red Cross camp. I thought I’d forgotten everything, but I guess not. My dad made me go. He said it would teach me ‘useful life skills.’ And look! He was right. I might’ve just saved your life, English. Whad’ya say to that, huh?”

Peggy continues to lie still in the grass.

“Miss Violet’s calling a hospital. Or she just was. You’re gonna ride in an ambulance and everything! I don’t know how long you’ve been out, but you’ll probably wake up in the ambulance, so don’t panic if you see yourself in there, okay? Hey. You know what? I’m going to ask if I can ride with you. That way, you won’t freak out. I mean, not that you’re the type to freak out over anything, English. I know you’d kill me if you heard me say that.”

Angie places a hand gently on Peggy’s shoulder. Her voice cracks. “Hey. Please wake up. Please wake up.”

She remembers the afternoon they’d watched Clueless and she’d shaken Peggy awake after the movie ended. “Wake up, sleepyhead. C’mon,” Angie echoes. She places her hand gently on the side of Peggy’s face.

Peggy’s still. Angie pulls back her hand. “Violet’s almost back. Then you won’t have to be stuck in this grass anymore. It’s itchy, isn’t it? Feel those blades. It’s like they’re poking you. I heard a rumor this grass came from Korea.”

A conscious Peggy would tease her for gossiping about grass, of all things. The silence that greets her instead is conspicuous. Angie bites her lower lip and places her hand down gently on the grass.

It’s warm.

_ Warm? _

Angie pushes blades aside. At the bases of the grass, there are burn marks. She spreads through more and more grass, finding the edges of a circular pattern to it. Doing a quick calculation, she notes that the epicenter of the circle would be somewhere in the woods, just out of sight of the school. She inhales deeply and bites a fingernail. “Dottie.”

Then Violet sprints back over the hill, followed by a furious Principal Miriam Fry. 

Angie turns back to Peggy, her voice intense. “Look. Here comes Miss Violet and Principal Fry now. You’re gonna be alright. I bet the ambulance is almost here.”

“How is she?” Violet calls, running hard.

“Still not awake!” Angie, hiding her panic, pushes a strand of hair away from Peggy’s face and tucks it back behind her ear. “She’ll be alright, right?”

“Of course.” Violet slows and crouches next to Peggy, showing Fry her head wound. “She must have hit the rock on the ground.”

“Doing what?”

Violet shakes her head. “I don’t know. It’s also possible, though unlikely, that someone knocked her out with the rock. Do you know anyone who might have wanted to hurt Peggy?” she asks Angie.

Angie bites her lip and thinks again of the faint crop circle. “Dottie Underwood.”

“Dottie Underwood,” scoffs Fry. “A perfectly proper young woman. “Are you sure, Miss Martinelli?”

Before she can answer, Angie hears sirens pouring over the hill. “The ambulance is here,” she says unnecessarily, as Violet jumps to her feet to run over.

 

Miriam Fry shifts uncomfortably next to Peggy, looking down at her, concerned. “You may go, Angela,” she says, after a while.

Angie shakes her head. “I want to ride to the hospital with her. I… told her I would.”

Fry nods. “You are a loyal friend.”

Angie gives a wan, worried smile.

“She’ll be alright,” says Fry decisively, as if she holds the power to make it so.

Angie looks off into the trees. “Dottie won’t,” she mutters.


	23. Chapter 23

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie pulls out of the woods on the other end. She can’t use her magic; she’s uncomfortably close to Rifting from the whirlwind she had created. Suppressing the circle, the natural outlet of magic, turned it back into her, and she’s wiped from trying to contain it, though she’s so heady on wavering joy and emotion she’s not even aware of it. Even in her scattered state of mind, though, she knows that if she uses any more magic, she might overload and Rift herself, and she’d rather die.

She’s running, exhausted, and free of magic, and therefore not paying attention when she almost runs right into Whitney Frost.

She stops dead, her chest heaving. In fight-or-flight, she throws her arms out in front of herself to cast a defensive ward, to try and block an offensive spell, to do anything, but it’s too late. Whitney smiles and flicks her fingers, and Dottie collapses to the ground, senseless.

Whitney picks her up effortlessly, her magic aiding her. Unlike Dottie’s power, hers is dark black, like oil, and it wraps around Dottie like tentacles, bearing her up into Whitney’s arms.

She looks down into Dottie’s face and smiles. Then she turns and walks slowly back to her car, placing Dottie in the trunk and locking it, carefully. A simple spell ensures Dottie won’t get out.

Then she gets in the driver's seat, placing gloves over her hands before she touches the steering wheel, and speeds onto the highway, heading up a hill and back to her house.

In the trunk, black, oily matter still wrapped around her like chains, Dottie begins to dream.

 

She wakes up in the crack between two black rocks. Her legs are sticking out in front of her, already bitten by the cold. She pulls them towards her and wraps her arms around herself, breathing on her fingers to warm them, to warm up anything she can.

She shivers. The rock presses close against her, on either side, shoving her shoulders together so she ends up hunched-over, frigid. She stretches an arm out, reaching for purchase on the rock above her, but it’s slick as obsidian and so cold it feels like she’s touching a block of ice.

She slams her palm down on it and pushes herself to a standing position. She stares at a grey, snowy wasteland, a white-covered plain stretching down to meet forest below. She’s seen this before. She’s dreamed this before. 

She stares at the sky. There’s the single red star, the brightest object there. And the bright red dress, too small for her now, is fluttering around her legs

She scans for constellations. There are none that she recognizes. The stars, she realizes, aren’t flickering. They must be planets.

_ Or illusions. _

The thought darts into her head and she tilts her head to the side, her hair (straight again, like it is naturally, and oddly grey) blowing over her eyes. It leaves her head as soon as she’s registered it, snapped away somehow, but she stretches her hands up to the stars anyway, aware that she’s dreaming, and tries to make her feet leave the ground as she tries to force herself up.

The dream resists, not letting her break its rules. That’s the first time it’s happened, the dream resisting Dottie’s changes when she lucid-dreams, and it’s strange. It’s uncomfortable to be stuck in a dream she knows isn’t real and still unable to escape. She crouches in the snow for a moment, the cold turning water and spreading through her clothes. She thinks -- or does she? She thinks -- it must be her -- there’s a whisper in her mind.

_ Don’t fly. Stay on the ground. _

Staying on the ground. It sounds like a good idea. Yes...

Then, like a flash from a broken camera, she remembers where she really is. She remembers Whitney, she remembers unconsciousness. She has to wake up.

She closes her eyes, focusing, and when she opens them, they take in the dark felt ceiling of a sedan’s trunk rather than the chilled dream-forest. There’s the sensation of falling and she irrationally worries for a half-second she’ll tumble through the floor of the car.

Then the feeling subsides. She shifts, not panicking, and that’s when she becomes aware of her arms, pins and needles starting to shoot through them. She pulls them closer to her face and a scream builds behind her throat. Locked around them are two black, oily cuffs. The Zero Matter, magic in its purest form, is touching her. Is trapping her.

Somehow, Whitney Frost has managed a way to use Zero Matter without Rifting. If she’d Rifted, she’d be completely insane. Right?

Dottie pushes her hands away from her and her feet land against the side of the trunk. She’s cramped and can barely shift five inches in any direction. Her head is curled against the other side of the trunk, so she’s facing the faintest crack of light from outside the car. She reaches her hands out towards it, gingerly, and sees the Zero Matter is enlocking her arms, too. Her eyes catch its glisten in the darkness as it snakes all around her. The pressure she’d felt isn’t her clothes. It’s chains.

Dottie tries to force her hands apart. They won’t move. She tries to use her magic, to summon more strength or a fire to burn the chains away. Nothing happens. There’s no spark of power that the ability to use magic brings. She’s been blocked from using it altogether, a sensation that feels remarkably like the dream keeping her trapped on the ground.

The Zero Matter has locked her rigidly, torturously still, and all she can do is lie there, completely at the mercy of Whitney Frost. 

She closes her eyes again and keeps trying to access her magic, to do something. Still, nothing happens. She kicks the front of the trunk. It’s locked and doesn’t even budge.

Whitney hears the thump. “Awake, I see,” she remarks, slowing the car at a light. “Trying to kick your way out is useless.”

Dottie grinds her teeth and says nothing, continuing to struggle silently.

Whitney turns back to the road, satisfied, turns on the radio, and runs the red light. She’s past caring about the trivialities of legality, now. Her mind has been opened.

Dottie’s eyes flick back and forth along the trunk. She pushes against all sides of it, but nothing gives. Powerlessness suffuses her, chokes her, and her hands clench into fists. She won’t be beaten by this.

She reaches again for her magic but comes up with nothing. There’s this block, this wall inside her, and as hard as she forces, she can’t get rid of it. It’s lodged sideways in her, impossible to describe.

The Zero Matter tightens around her, as if sensing her growing determination. It begins to move, snaking around her neck and clamping itself there, cool and slick around her neck. Instantly, Dottie can’t breathe. Her eyes widen and her hands scrabble at the inside of the trunk. She lurches upward as Whitney drives over a speedbump. Her head hits the top of the trunk, hard, and she’s instantly woozy.

Her spine is rebelling, hating the confines. She reaches up and scratches at the Zero Matter wrapped around her neck. It doesn’t loosen. Her back hurts, pain stretching all down it, every inch of her screaming  _ GET OUT, GET OUT. _

She feels consciousness slipping and fights it, trying to wrap her hand around the band to pull it off, but it’s so tight to her skin she can’t get a grip on it. She chokes again and forces her chin down to her chest.

She makes a weak noise, hoping Whitney Frost will hear. The radio keeps playing.

There are bright lights at the corner of her vision that she, her brain out-of-focus, tries to catch on to. Her fingers open and close without her knowledge, flopping like beached fish. Just as she slides to unconsciousness, she feels the Zero Matter around her neck relax. But before she can inhale, she’s back in the icy forest.

It’s even colder this time, and Dottie’s skin prickles into goosebumps the second she opens her eyes. The stars, or planets, or whatever they are, glitter icily above.

She’s again in the crack between rocks, but hunched over in a sitting position, her chin just above her folded knees. She grasps onto the smooth obsidian-like rocks as best she can and stands, instantly wracked with tremors from the cold. 

_ I will not be beaten by this. _

She wraps her arms around herself and finds that she’s still wearing the bright red dress, the same one she’d dreamed of all those years ago. It dances in the wind, tattered now, and too small and tight across Dottie’s larger frame.

Somehow, it gives her strength. She takes a step forward, then another, her feet carrying her towards the red star, which has moved down in the sky. “F-follow the y-y-y. Yellow brick r-road,” Dottie whispers to herself, her teeth chattering. The grey tree-like smudges at the edges of her vision seem to taunt her, but she takes one step and then another, choked by the cold.

And then she’s awake again, in Whitney’s arms as she heaves her bodily out of the car. “Stand,” she orders, and Dottie, her sleep warring with her waking mind, tries her best. 

“Walk,” Whitney orders, pacing a gloved hand on Dottie’s shoulder. The chains around her fall to the ground and snake up into Whitney’s boots, an unbelievably creepy image. Swallowing, Dottie lifts her chin and walks up the front walkway to a large, ornate mansion.

As soon as they enter the door, Whitney spins around and slams Dottie against the wall. “So,” she says, saliva between her teeth. “I’ve got you now.”

Dottie crushes herself back against the door, filled with disgust. “Get away from me,” she manages, loathing crawling in a thousand tiny feet all over her skin.

“Not yet,” says Whitney ominously. She flicks her wrist and Zero Matter crawls out of her boots and shoots along Dottie’s legs and up to her arms, closing her in a skintight barred cage.

Whitney pulls the girl along behind her as she makes her way down into her basement, pushing Dottie down the stairs, across the floor, and finally into a chair. 

“So,” she says, as the Zero Matter pools away from Dottie’s body, resolving itself into two cuffs that lock her to the chair.

“Why did you kidnap me?” Dottie asks, controlling the anger in her voice. She’s already calculating the best way out of this situation.

“I need something from you.” Whitney doesn’t elaborate further, instead staring at Dottie in silence. “You’re quite the little witch.”

“I am. Why aren’t you?” Dottie gestures to the cuffs. “This isn’t magic.”

Whitney laughs, an askew, deranged sound. “Magic. It’s taken too much from me for far too long. My childhood. My innocence. You know what that’s like. I can see it in your eyes,” she says, pulling her gloves from her hands.

Dottie recalculates. She feigns emotion. “Yes,” she tries. “We’re so much alike.”

She pretends to gulp, to feel overwhelmed with sadness. Whitney steps over towards her. Her hair shifts slightly, moving to the side. And there, right above her left eyebrow, is a black, oily crack.

She’s Rifted.

Dottie has been captured by a Rifted witch.

Real fear shows on her face, then. The Rifted are dangerous, insane. And powerful. Arguably the most lethal people on earth.

Dottie’s not frightened of much, but she’s terrified of them, as every intelligent witch is.

She quickly disguises the fear on her face. She knows it’s perhaps not the time to be sarcastic, but she will not do the bidding of anyone Rifted. Or anyone at all. She’s severed herself from Leviathan. She’s on her own, now.

“Let me tell you all my secrets. I feel… just from talking to you for a few moments we’re… we’re absolutely in the same boat!” She pretends to gulp, to simper. Inside, she’s seething, anger and fear roiling in her like an ocean storm.

“Oh,” Whitney says, stepping closer to where Dottie is tied to her chair. The air temperature seems to drop. The back of Dottie’s neck prickles. “We’re not in the same boat. We’re not even in the same ocean.”

She stretches out her hand to Dottie and Dottie’s struck again with that sense of power that radiates from her, that sense of danger. She hadn’t sensed that she was Rifted. It’s impossible to tell who has Rifted and who hasn’t, she realizes with growing horror. If their crack were under their clothes, were somewhere else, you’d never know.

Then Whitney’s hand wraps around her neck and Dottie experiences the worst pain she’s ever known. Black fills her veins, shoots up her face and gathers in her mouth, swirling there, burning her. It sears through her, hotter than burning fire and colder than the coldest she’s ever been. It’s every horrible sensation she’s ever felt, and it’s eating her, shooting into her from Whitney Frosts’s hand, and it doesn’t stop. It builds to a crescendo, every inch of her face burning worse than frostbite, worse than Fennhoff’s blowtorch. Whitney tightens her grip and the feeling grows.

When she finally releases her hand, Dottie collapses forward and tells her everything she knows.

*    *    *

Peggy comes to in the hospital. Her eyes hesitantly open, trying to both see the world and stay closed around the sterile light all around her. Her two desires war with each other through the fog in Peggy’s head. Finally, she speaks. “Angie?” she asks. “Dottie? Mom?”

Her mother gives a small gasp and clutches Peggy’s hand. “Oh, my darling girl,” she whispers, her voice a whisper. There are no tears on her face, but her eyes are red. “What happened?”

Her mother is a worrier; Peggy knows. As soon as she registers her mom’s face, she also registers a pounding pain in the side of her head. She moves her hand up to her hair and finds a tight bandage, but her mother pushes it firmly away. 

“Don’t touch it, Peggy!” comes another voice higher-pitched and sharper. Angie.

Peggy blinks and looks around at her hospital room, her eyes skirting Angie’s but not meeting hers. Her vision rests on a machine, not connected to her, on the dust in the line where the wall meets the floor, on the white boxed ceiling. The last she remembered… the last she remembered, Dottie had conjured a whirlwind and then… and then she’d flown. She’s used the wind to push herself over to Dottie and had crashed into her, sending them both to the ground. Then Dottie had changed so she looked exactly like Peggy and had slammed something into the side of her head.

A rock.

Peggy closes her eyes and groans. Her head is sending shockwaves of pain into her mind, breaking up the narrative. She gives up after a while, closing her eyes again.

“Peggy? Peggy?” her mom and Angie are asking. Peggy, uncaring, drifts back into unconsciousness. She’s done with sentience, for now.

 

*    *    *

 

“As I said before, I need you to do something for me,” Whitney Frost tells Dottie, smiling pleasantly. Her gloves are back on, but Dottie’s still tied to her chair, bent over.

“And what’s that?” Dottie’s head hangs forward, her hair falling over her face. Her fingernails are scratching into the wood of the chair and she’s suppressing tremors. Her posture speaks of weakness, defeat.

“I need you to steal something.”

Whitney Frost picks something up from the table next to her. It’s an iPhone, a large one. The juxtaposition is bizarre; Dottie’s locked in what seems almost like a dungeon, being presided over by a woman in a flowing, fancy dress, who is apparently looking up something on Google.

Dottie almost laughs at the absurdity of it all. Four minutes earlier, she would have. But the pain is fresh and scarring in her mind.

Whitney Frost shows her an image. “Familiar?” she asks.

Dottie stiffens. It’s an Arena Club pin.

“I see,” she says to Whitney, forcing her breathing to stay even. “You wish to gain a membership.”

“I do.” Whitney smiles and places her phone back delicately. “And you are going to give it to me.”

“Technically, if I steal the pin, I would get the membership, not you,” Dottie points out.

Whitney lays a gloved finger on Dottie’s jawbone and slides it under her chin, a light reminder of what she can do. 

“That’s true. But if I steal it from you, or if you chose to give it,” the pressure of her finger grows and Dottie’s painfully aware of what she’d feel if it weren’t gloved, “then the membership still goes to me.”

Dottie shrinks back ever-so-slightly and nods. “Will do. When do I start?”

Whitney Frost laughs. “I’m not stupid, Dorothy.”

“Really?” Dottie notes that Whitney doesn’t know the name Ida and files the information away.

Whitney ignores the jab. “You plan to run.”

Dottie almost says, “Of course I do; what do you expect when you fucking kidnap me?” but swallows it, letting Whitney continue.

“So, to prevent this, I’ll just do a simple spell.”

She takes the glove off her right hand. Dottie stiffens. Whitney laughs. “Already you’re learning.”

She takes hold of Dottie’s left wrist and draws a line on it with her right hand. It leaves a painful, oily streak, as if it’s acid, but it’s nowhere near the earlier pain.

“Now, that will really start to hurt if you so much as _think_ to do anything other than what I ask.”

Dottie looks at the slick black line around her wrist. It’s high enough that a shirtsleeve, when pulled all the way down, would cover it, right over the long-standing vivid violet bruise from the handcuff on her bed in the Red Room.

“Try it,” Whitney says, snapping her fingers. The Zero Matter keeping Dottie in her chair falls to the ground, splattering there and snaking along the ground to pool at Whitney’s feet. Dottie rubs her wrists angrily; they’re chafed and dry.

“Try it,” Whitney says again, still smiling. She gestures to her side. “The door’s unlocked. Run.”

Dottie keeps her body still, waiting for Whitney to hurt her again. But she makes no move. Instead, she drops her arm back to her side and shrugs. “Go ahead. I won’t lay a finger on you.”

Dottie remains still for two more seconds. Then, all at once, she launches herself out of her chair, tearing past Whitney Frost and making it to the staircase.

She gets one foot on the first step. Then the pain starts.

It wracks her from inside out, spreading from her wrist like poison through veins, identical to when Whitney had wrapped her hand around Dottie’s neck. Dottie twists and falls, hitting the bottom step on her back and forearm and arching her neck in a silent scream.

Whitney, who has not moved an inch, smiles wider and steps over to Dottie, grasping her wrist gently. As soon as her fingertip meets Dottie’s skin, the pain ceases. Smiling, she helps the girl back to her feet.

“Convinced yet?”

Dottie shakes again, hard, then harder. “H-how do I know,” she gulps, for real this time, and forces her chin up.  _ Like Fennhoff said. Posture. _

“How do I know you didn’t just cast something on me as I ran past you?”

Whitney shrugs. “You don’t. But will you risk it?”

Dottie’s silent.

“And for the record, I didn’t cast anything on you. The only way I can cause that… reaction… is have the Zero Matter touch you directly. And with that nice little bracelet, I can.”

Dottie looks again at the black, slick oil-like substance around her wrist and grimaces. Then she makes eye contact with Whitney Frost, shoving down the pervasive, violent feeling that she’s looking at something wrong, something unnatural. “I’ll steal the pin for you.” She raises her chin, not broken, never broken.

“Excellent,” Whitney says, clapping her hands like a small child awarded a treat. “It’s in a bank vault in Amberwood strip mall.”

“Amberwood’s bank,” Dottie repeats. She can’t quite remember which one it is. Maybe Wells Fargo; whichever one parades around in holiday ads in red and yellow. “It’s just a small branch. Are you sure an Arena Club member would hide a pin in there?”

Whitney begins to fix her hair, pulling it back over the Rift in her forehead. Dottie realizes with shock that it’s grown larger since Whitney started using her Zero Matter on her. “Your-”

“Crack?” Whitney taps it. “I’ll figure out something. I hear hats are coming back in fashion.”

She finishes adjusting her curls. “And a small branch is only what the bank  _ appears _ to be, my friend. Witches used to run that. It goes far deeper underground than anyone would expect.”

“Used to?”

“Oh, the economy hits us just as badly as anyone else, Miss Dorothy. You should know. You are a witch, after all.”

“Unlike you.” Dottie would spit it venomously if she had the energy, if pain weren’t still singing just below her veins.

“I’ve never been more powerful, Dorothy,” Whitney says, leaning close to Dottie’s face. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”

Dottie bites back a retort of “I have a pretty good idea, thank you very much, and my face still hurts.” She says nothing aloud, though, but Whitney seems to guess what she’s thinking.

She makes a humming-sound for a split-second and pulls her phone back towards herself. “It’s almost 2 PM. You should get started, hm?”

“How will I be able to steal it, though?” Dottie asks. “If it’s a witch’s pin, and the pin belongs to the Arena Club, it’ll be much better guarded than anything ordinary.”

Whitney Frost shrugs. “If I’m not mistaken, the owner of the pin died while their pin was still in the bank. Regardless of whether or not it’s true, it tells me you can steal it. I know you can do it.”

_ It? _

_ The Zero Matter _ , Dottie realizes.

“It’s controlling you,” Dottie says simply.

“Whether it is or not, it’s never been wrong. I’ve never been wrong, when working together with it.”

Dottie suppresses disgusted shivers. 

“And aren’t you supposedly the most powerful witch of your age, Dorothy?”

“I  _ was _ .”

“Hm.” Whitney gives Dottie another lofty smile. “Well, go. And you know what happens if you decide to desert this little mission.”

“I do.”

Giving her Zero Matter cuff another resentful look, Dottie turns her back on Whitney and walks out the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whitney Frost is back, bitches! And lbr; Dottie's screwed


	24. Chapter 24

**United States, Present-Day**

“What happened?” Peggy asks, looking at her mother. Her eyes register Angie next to her on the other side of the bed and her hand flicks out towards her.

“You were knocked out,” Amanda Carter says. “They gave you a CT scan. You have a concussion. I -- did you fall, Peggy? Were you drinking? It’s alright if you were -- I just want you to be safe -- were you in a fight? Oh Margaret, Peggy, Peggy!”

“Sh,” says Peggy weakly, too disoriented to try to remove her mother’s feather-light hands all over her face. “I’m fine.”

“You’re in a hospital, English,” says Angie, her voice clearly broken-up. Peggy hadn’t noticed her red-rimmed eyes or how her dress is dirty the first time she woke up, but she sees it now. “Clearly you’re not fine.”

Peggy tries to smile but it turns into a wince as her lip threatens to split. “Do you have chapstick,” she croaks out.

Her mother frantically tears through her purse to give one to her. Peggy starts to put it on just as a nurse comes into the room.

“You’re awake,” she observes with a smile. She’s short and round, with ostentatious glasses and curly dark red hair. Her nametag reads ROSE.

“Will she be alright?” Peggy’s mother asks the nurse, as if Peggy isn’t right next to her.

“You have a small concussion,” the Rose says, speaking to Peggy instead. “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse.”

Peggy nods, still very much in a fog. “Okay,” she says, unsure of what to say to that.

“It’s odd,” Rose says, smiling again. “Your body seemed to heal itself even as we scanned you. I’ve never seen something like that before. Young people’s bodies are really amazing.”

Peggy nods and tries to focus on centering her breathing in her lungs and clearing the pain in her head to make room for coherent thoughts. 

“Dr. Samberly says we don’t need to keep her overnight,” Rose continues, turning to Peggy’s mom. “However, when she goes to sleep tonight, wake her up about every four hours.”

Amanda Carter looks like she wants to ask why, but changes her mind at the last second. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Dr. Samberly will be in in a moment.” Rose gives them another smile, turns, and leaves the room.

“Mrs. Carter?” Angie pipes up.

“Yes?”

“Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but could I have a moment alone with Peggy, please?”

Amanda Carter looks like she’s going to snap out No but quickly changes her mind. “You’re the one who found her, correct? Yes, yes, of course.”

Giving Peggy another lingering look, she steps out of the room

“I’m gonna fucking kill Dottie,” Angie hisses into Peggy’s ear the second her mother is gone. 

Peggy groans. “I can’t believe it was her.”

“We’ll have to take her down together.”

“No,” says Peggy, lingering affection still inside her. “We can’t. I don’t-- I’m tired.”

“Come on, English. You gotta get better so we can take this bitch down.”

“Who found me?” Peggy asks, her voice slightly clearer. “Was it you?”

“Yeah,” says Angie quietly. “You were just lying there. All… spread out. Like, your arms and everything. I knew something bad had happened.”

“How did you know it was Dottie?”

“Crop circle in the ground. Kind of. God,” Angie sits upright and presses her hand to her forehead, “this is a lot, Peggy. This is heavy stuff.”

“No kidding.” The more Peggy speaks, the more lucid her mind becomes, and she can practically feel herself healing. She remembers how easily Dottie came back to consciousness. Must be a witch thing.

_ Shit. Shit shit shit. _

“Angie?”

“Yeah?”

“This… is gonna sound weird.”

Angie shrugs. “So does everything you say, English. What is it?”

Peggy smirks at the insult, but the smile soon falls off her face. “I’m a witch, too.”

“Oh.” Angie chews on her lower lip for a minute. “That’s… that’s… okay.”

Peggy holds her hand up and twitches her fingers. Red light flickers around them for a heartbeat and vanishes.

Angie’s eyes widen. “Holy fuck.”

“I know.” Peggy exhales. “I don’t know what this means, but I’m really… I don’t know what I am, Angie, and then there’s Dottie, who’s out there somewhere, God knows where, and I guess I’m saying -- I guess I’m saying I need your help --”

“I’m here,” Angie says, cutting her off with a warm assurance. “Don’t worry about me leaving. I’m gonna be here to help you forever and always, alright? You’re stuck with me. Stuck like a bug in a rug.”

Peggy laughs. “That’s not at all how the saying goes!”

“Yeah? Well, it does with me.” Angie shakes her head. “You’ve gotta get better, English. And we’re in this together, now.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, guys!! I can't believe you're still here with me -- and for my new reader, welcome to this clusterfuck! The next chapter is gonna be short, so hopefully the amount of time until I post it will be short, too. As always, questions, comments, and concerns are always welcome and valid!


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeesh, I meant to post this three days ago. Forgive me please :,)

**United States, Present-Day**

Back at her hotel room, Dottie grabs for her brunette wig on her bed. She tucks up her blonde curls into a ponytail and wig cap, pulling the brown down over it and immediately looking different. She could enchant herself to change, but a wig is much simpler.

She mentally prepares to do a lot of magic; she’ll have to disable alarms, open advanced locks, and place a sort of screen over the whole bank so that nobody notices anything amiss.

It’ll be one of the hardest things she’s ever done.

Or… she could just not do it.

Pain sears into her wrist, doubling her over, and she can practically hear Whitney cackling in the back of her mind.

_ I’ll do it! _ she thinks.  _ I’LL DO IT! _

The pain dies away. How the cuff knows what she’s thinking is not something she wants to think about. Either it’s under her skin and in her bloodstream and brain, this black oily magic, or Whitney can somehow sense her thoughts through it. She has no way to know, and she doesn’t even know which is more disturbing.  _ This is from another dimension. It has no rules. _

She slicks on some red lipstick and adjusts her wig, then takes a hot pink baseball cap and places it on her head, pulling the brim over her eyes.

She’s ready to go.


	26. Chapter 26

**United States, Present-Day**

“...And with that, I think, she’s ready to go,” Dr. Samberly is saying. Peggy, once able to stand and move around on her own, had insisted on being released, which fit pretty well with hospital policy on concussions. But when Dr. Samberly had begun to talk, she had zoned out for most of it -- he seemed to have a tendency to talk more about how excellent his treatment was than the possible effects of her concussion. “I’m glad you’re appreciating the time and effort I put into fixing her up. Did you know that for this machine, I had to-”

“ _ Thank you _ ,” Rose cuts in, and Amanda Carter gives a tiny sigh of relief. “Now, Mrs. Carter, remember; don’t let Peggy sleep through the entire night tonight. Wake her every four hours or so. And with that… you have transportation arranged?”

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Excellent!” Rose claps her hands. “Then all you need to do is fill out these check-out forms that I brought up from the front desk, and we’ll be on our way.” She hands a clipboard and pen to Mrs. Carter as Dr. Samberly continues to stand awkwardly by.

“Can I ride with you?” Angie asks.

“Of course, Angie.” Amanda smiles at her as she signs the first page. She turns to Peggy. “Darling, are you alright?”

“Yes,” Peggy says.  _ I have to find Dottie as soon as possible! _ “Thank you so much, Mom.”  _ She could be anywhere by now! _ She walks in small circles around the room, wobbling a little, as her mother finishes up the forms. “Are we ready to go?”

“You, Peggy, are going to be the death of me,” Amanda sighs. She pats her daughter on the shoulder affectionately, but her face is still worried.

Rose stands on one side of Peggy and her mother takes the other as they walk down the halls to the elevator, Angie carrying all of Peggy’s schoolthings that had been brought and placed in the hospital room. Dr. Samberly is mansplaining the way to their car, even though he probably doesn’t even know where it’s parked. Angie flashes Peggy a knowing look. Peggy grins back at her and then stumbles, but Angie props her back up in a heartbeat and a whispered, “Hang in there,” in her ear.   
  


Once in the car, Amanda again asks, “What happened?” She starts the engine and starts backing out of her parking spot.

“I fell over,” says Peggy quickly. “I was running into the woods. I thought I saw an, uh, a bunny. And I wanted to get a photo to prove to Charlie we have them in the neighborhood still. I wasn’t looking where I was going and tripped. Then I hit the rock with my head.”

Angie raises her eyebrows and nods, impressed at the speed and stability of the lie. “Good one,” she mouths. Peggy smirks and then winces when the small action makes her head send a burst of pain through her body.

Amanda pulls out of the parking garage and up into the open air. Peggy squints at the sudden brightness, her head starting to pound more fiercely, and Amanda, noticing, hands her a pair of sunglasses.

“Why didn’t Charlie come?” Angie asks.

“He’s out visiting Syracuse College,” Amanda replies. “I called him to tell him that Peggy will be ok.”

Peggy looks out the window and bites her lip, a bit hurt that he didn’t come, even though she knows it’s irrational. “Ok.”

“Are you sure you’re feeling well?” Amanda asks.

“ _ Yes _ ,” assures Peggy firmly. “My head feels fine.” It doesn’t, and the sun is making everything stab at her, but she pushes her forehead onto the heel of her hand to ground herself.

“Are you really?” Angie mouths. Peggy shrugs in response.

Angie grasps her hand and looks out the window, watching as the road flies by and the inner city gives way to suburbia and then to Peggy’s neighborhood, as familiar to her as her own. “You’re sure you’re okay?” she asks, as they pull up in front of Peggy’s house.

“Yes, Angie. Yes, everyone. I’m feeling fine. It’s just a minor concussion.”

Understanding that Peggy is irritated and tired (as well as physically hurt), Angie falls silent, dropping Peggy’s hand.


	27. Chapter 27

**United States, Present-Day**

Angie helps Peggy out of the car and into her house, guiding her by her elbow up the stairs to her bedroom. “I’d like to be alone with Angie for a bit, Mom,” Peggy tells her mother with a faint voice and a forced smile, and Amanda forces down all her overprotective instincts to let her.

Angie, Peggy’s backpack on her shoulders, helps Peggy lie down on her own bed and walks to the window, closing the blinds so the brightness doesn’t hurt Peggy’s eyes. “How are you feeling?” she asks again, unable to stop her concern from bubbling out into words.

“We have to find Dottie,” Peggy says instead of answering, pushing herself upright. “Quick, get my laptop. Check the school address and put it in Google Earth or something.”

Angie throws down the backpack and yanks the laptop out of it, unzipping it from its case and handing it to Peggy, who types in her password and shoves it quickly back to Angie. “The screen hurts.”

“Alright.” Angie goes to the directory and types in “DOROTHY UNDERWOOD.” Five minutes later, she sighs. “The address is fake. Google Earth turns up nothing. Everything turns up nothing. The address in the directory is complete bull.”

“Goddamn! And she’s gotten rid of her phone, too.” Peggy’s iPhone lands back on her bedside table with a clatter and she rubs her eyes.

“Is there any other way you know of to get to her?”

Peggy settles herself back into her pillows and thinks, hard. Then, all of a sudden, she sits bolt upright, wonder in her eyes. “This is going to sound strange, Angie, but do you have that hairbrush we used when we were over at your house?”

Angie nods, bemused. “Yeah. Why?”

“Have you cleaned it?”

Angie winces. “No. Oops.”

“No, that’s good! That’s -- that’s excellent! Can I have it, please?”

Angie nods slowly, skeptically. “Why?”

“I -- I figure -- Dottie said that witches have been discovered but the discoverers -- that nobody believed them. Remember?”

“Yeah, I remember. What’s that got to do with the brush?”

“I think -- well, maybe there’s some truth to the witch fables. And all of these spells have a personal item from someone -- the sock of a person, or a piece of their hair.”

Angie snaps her fingers. “And you want to see if Dottie left a hair on that brush and if you can use it to find her.”

“Exactly! Thank you, Angie! You’re a lifesaver.”

“Yeah, I know.” Angie grins. “I’ll get it to you as soon as I can.”

“Angie,” Peggy says, and her voice is slow and careful.

“Yeah?”

“Angie, I have to tell you something.”

“What?”

“Dottie. Angie, she wanted to kill me. Not just hurt me. Kill me.”

Angie brings both hands to her mouth. There’s a silence. “Are you… sure?”

“Positive. She sent a message -- you can check my Skype -- she sent it to the wrong person. And then I knew, from my instincts or magic or whatever -- I woke up. Some part of me did. My magic. And then we fought -- and she chose not to kill me -- but Angie, she might still be a murderer. She -- Angie, she’s dangerous, more than you know, more than this,” Peggy indicates the bandage on her head that’s mostly unnecessary by now, “and she might want to hurt you, too.”

Angie is nodding soberly, processing all the information and filing it where she won’t be scared of it. 

“Angie, I want you to stay out of this.”

Angie’s reaction is exactly what Peggy expected. “No way. I’m in this with you ’till the end.”

“Angie, please.” Peggy sits forward and takes Angie’s hands in hers, staring deep into her eyes with as much force as she can muster. “Angie, I’ve been your friend for less than a year, but you’re one of the most amazing people I have ever met. You have to listen to me. Angie, if you respect me -- Angie, please, stay out of this. For me. Can’t you do it, for me?”

Angie fights an entire continental war in her eyes. She pushes her hands up over her face and remains silent.

“Angie, I know you want to protect me. And I will sound cruel here, but I promise I’m only trying to be logical. You don’t have magic. And -- Angie, if you go in with me, if you go after Dottie, and she hurts you, I would blame myself for the rest of my life for not being able to protect you. This is how I can protect you, Angie. Please, you have to stay safe. I need to do this alone.”

“You’re sure I don’t have magic?” Angie stretches out her hand and contorts her fingers. She cracks a smile and shakes her head. “Nope.”

“Angie…”

“I understand,” says Angie, and she really does. “You would be going after Dottie while simultaneously having to protect me, which would put you in even more danger. I don’t want to do that to you.”

She leans over and kisses Peggy on the cheek and pulls back, placing a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll be your emergency backup, though. Promise me.”

“I promise you.”

“I’ll get your hairbrush for you. My mom will be wanting me back at my house soon too, I guess. Can I give it to you tomorrow?”

“I think so. Yes.” Peggy forces a smile and gives Angie a hug. “Tonight, I’ll recover.”

“I’ll be over with it tomorrow at ten.”

“Skipping school?”

“God, my mom won’t let me do that. I’ll get her to give it to you, and I’ll make her promise not to touch it. Actually, I’ll wrap it, say it’s a gift for you. She won’t open it then.”

“You’re a genius, Angie.”

Angie laughs. “Now your job is to get better.”

  
She leaves with a smile and a wave, carrying a heavy weight in her heart.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WENT ON SPRING BREAK! so sorry about the week without an update!

**United States, Present-Day**

The next day, Angie’s mother comes as promised with the package and a bouquet of white lilies, which Peggy deeply appreciates, though she thinks they’d seem better suited to a coffin. With a smile, she takes them and buries her face in them, tucking the package under her arm with her other hand. Her mother chats with Angie’s mom, one hand on Peggy’s shoulder, until Peggy gives a small groan from the light from the window and her mother pushes her firmly up to her bed.

Unwrapping the package with almost-shakingly hopeful fingers, Peggy takes out the brush. A small note falls into the bottom of the box as she does so, and with her other hand she lifts it to her eyes and reads the handwritten message there.

“Hey English! I really, really hope this helps you. Good luck, alright? And if you need me, I’m here :)”

On the back, there’s, “Shit I forgot. I’m looking for Dottie, too, but as of my writing this message the internet’s turned up nothing.”

Peggy grins and looks at the brush. Angie’s hair is very easily distinguishable from Dottie’s, and she spots a single strand of gold between the bristles of the brush. Leaning closer, she sees that it curls the same way Dottie’s hair does.  _ Perfect. _

As if someone’s going to come snatch up the hair, Peggy slams the box top back over the brush and shoves it into the bottom drawer of her bedside table. She doesn’t feel well enough to search for Dottie right away, though. Tomorrow, she decides, she’ll look for her… and skip her first day of school.

“You’re changing,” comes a sing-song-sharp voice in her head. She snaps around -- it sounds as if Dottie is right at her shoulder. But there’s nobody there.

“God, now I’m hallucinating, too,” Peggy groans. She curls herself under the covers, forcing herself to get some rest.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter and the next one will be too, but after that there'll be a very long one with what's hopefully an exciting showdown. Please don't bail on me, guys!

**United States, Present-Day**

_ I feel well enough to go to school, but I’m playing hooky to catch a witch. Unreal. _

 

Peggy closes her eyes and holds onto Angie’s hairbrush. She doesn’t know exactly what to do, but almost every piece of writing with witches in it says that you can use something of a person’s to perform some sort of spell and find them. She remembers Dottie’s words from when she’d first told Peggy she was a witch, in the woods outside the school with Angie. Witches had been discovered several times. So maybe the stories of divining rods and cauldrons… maybe there’s a bit of truth in them.

If not, she doesn’t know how else to find Dottie. She could do anything, be anywhere, and Peggy would have nowhere to start. She realizes with a sinking feeling in her stomach that Dottie could have left the country altogether and that Peggy might never be able to catch up to her again, even if she does find her location.

“Take it one step at a time,” she whispers to herself.

 

Her phone pings, and she sees that Angie has contacted her. “search going well?”

Dottie is still in the city, but Peggy doesn’t know for how long, and she certainly doesn’t have time to chat. “I don’t know. I’m really busy, Angie. I have to catch Dottie.”

There’s a long pause before Angie responds, and Peggy feels bad.

“i look forward to hearing about all of it someday,” she texts.

“Someday,” Peggy replies. Then she powers her phone off and slides it into her pocket. She has a witch to find.

 

She pulls the hair from the brush and holds it up, watching how it curls and catches the light. Closing her eyes, she mentally reaches down  _ into _ the hair, fingering where it once rested in Dottie’s scalp. The thought is incredibly weird and unnerving, but Peggy focuses harder and harder, trying to find something of Dottie in the small piece of her hair.

 

Suddenly, she feels a sharp, short tug. The hair heats up and she drops it reflexively. It floats back onto the brush, glowing with the same pale ice-blue Dottie’s magic is. It lands on the brush delicately and the whole brush lights up the same color, the handle spinning forward to point into Peggy’s wall.

  
“That way,” Peggy breathes. She leaps to her feet, snatches up the brush, and races out the door.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> SHOWDOWN TIME!

**United States, Present-Day**

She leaves the house and slides into her car after scribbling a note for her mom (and cringing thinking of the telling-off she’ll get when she gets back for driving with a concussion). She starts the engine and pulls out onto the road, excited, nervous. The brush is glowing and pointing left, so that’s the direction Peggy turns. It guides her onto Interstate 95, and Peggy notes that Dottie must be somewhere in the center of the city.

She takes the first exit and the ramp. She’s farther than her mom would ever allow her to drive if she knew, and she hopes to god her mom doesn’t call and get worried. Her phone is switched-off, anyway, so she can always lie her way out of it after the fact.

_ It’s something Dottie would do _ , she realizes with a start.  _ No. It’s different. _

Some more vague thoughts form. She’s an honest girl and an obedient daughter because of her mom’s values that have been instilled into her. Dottie is a dishonest girl and evil person because of her training.  _ Don’t your parents train you? Is it the same thing? _

_ No. _ Peggy focuses on the road. She’s a very good driver for her 17 years, but she knows that accidents can happen at any time.  _ Watch the road. _

The exit feeds her onto a smaller highway, Route something-or-other (the name is hidden by a badly-maintained roadside bush). She keeps half an eye on the brush in case its direction changes.

It doesn’t take long. The brush turns right at a 90 degree angle once Peggy’s been on the highway for a few minutes. Peggy switches on her turning signal and pulls into the turning lane, getting annoyed as the light in front of her turns red. The glow on the brush has only gotten brighter as she’s driven, but as she watches, it dims slightly. Dottie is getting farther away.

The light changes and Peggy instantly steps on the acceleration, turning right and zipping down another thoroughfare. Jones Boulevard, the road sign reads. Peggy wonders which famous Jones it’s named after or if it’s named after multiple people named Jone. It’s probably the first one, but in America, you never know.

The brush’s glow turns brighter again and it starts to shake with tiny tremors. Dottie’s close.

Peggy passes a strip mall and a bank and a sports store. The brush flips around 180 degrees, suddenly, and starts to slightly dim as she continues. Peggy pulls over and parallel parks the car.  _ Amberwood? You’ve got to be joking. _ But the brush keeps its course. Sighing, she turns back into the road and takes the nearest available U-turn, maneuvering her way back the way she’d come until she pulls into Amberwood strip mall’s parking lot.

She takes the brush and steps out of the car, careful to lock it behind her. Dottie is in one of the buildings in the strip, so she starts to make a circuit, seeing which one is the right one. Holding the brush in front of her, she first walks towards the sports store. There’s an odd, sort of prickly feeling that suddenly brushes over her as she passes closer to the bank, but she puts it down to the fact that the mall is as empty as she’s ever seen it.

She’s aware of how weird she must look; she’s a teenager, probably with messy hair, holding a brush out in front of her like it’s a divining rod, which, she supposes, it actually is.

It shifts in her hands as she passes by the bank. Dottie’s there.

Peggy reaches into her pocket to take out a wallet, anything to give her a reason to be going into the bank. Then she realizes something. It’s a Sunday. The bank is closed.

She looks towards the sports store. It’s open still, so she wonders if the brush is mistaken. She walks in the doors and the brush almost immediately swivels in her hands to point towards the bank next door.

Peggy pulls her mouth into a slash. Dottie’s in a closed bank, which can only mean one thing; she’s there to steal something.  _ Why am I not surprised? _

She turns around and leaves the sports store to stand in front of the bank. The brush is pointing right at it, but as she looks at it, it tilts downward. It’s not surprising; most of the vaults are underground and, looking in the glass doors of the building, Dottie is nowhere to be seen.

Peggy doesn’t know many magic tricks yet. She can perform a tracking spell, she can make her hand glow, and she can catch the wind, but she certainly can’t teleport.  _ Maybe Dottie can _ , Peggy thinks, looking at the brush handle dip further downward.

There’s one more thing. Peggy weighs her options. _ If Dottie’s in a closed and locked bank, chances are the security system is disabled, right? Or she’d be caught. Maybe all the alarms are off, too. _

Peggy looks around. Almost eerily, the mall is nearly deserted.

Thinking she’s figured out a way in, Peggy backs up several steps and catches onto the wind behind her. Then she starts to run.

Her steps fall hard on the street and right before she hits the curb, she jumps. She shoves herself forward and off the ground, kicking her legs out in front of her. With the powerful aid from the wind, she crashes through the glass doors of the bank and drops into a sloppy roll.

Immediately, she feels cuts and scrapes all over her. Ignoring them, she jerks herself to her feet and whirls around to look at the street. Nobody’s there. She remembers the prickly feeling -- it wasn’t because the place wasn’t crowded; it was because there’s another spell over the bank. A women with two black shopping bags passes by. Hey eyes slide past the bank as if she can’t see anything unusual at all.

Dottie’s definitely in here, and she’s cast something powerful, meaning she’s probably weakened or close to Rifting.

Peggy picks up the brush. It had skidded out of her hand and into the corner of the room. She grabs it back. It’s pointing even farther down, so she races around the bank counter and towards the elevators in the back. She presses a button, expecting alarms every second, but no sounds come.  _ Whatever spell Dottie put on this place really  _ **_is_ ** _ strong. _

Judging by the tilt, Dottie’s probably far underground. Looking at the elevator buttons, she sees that there are four floors below ground. She chooses the lowest one, floor B4.

The elevator carries her down (a ride that seems to last an hour) and then stops with a small clanking sound. The doors slide open. The brush is glowing brightly now and parallel to the ground. Peggy cautiously steps out of the elevator and jumps when the doors close behind her.

There’s a tiny hallway and another set of thick, metal, silver doors. One is ajar. Gathering her courage, Peggy takes the few steps towards it  and pushes it open. “Dottie Underwood,” she says, lighting the tips of her fingers alight with a dark red, flickering flame. “I caught you.”

Dottie, wearing a bright red-pink baseball cap and a dark brown wig, is rooting through a vault, so incredibly focused on her task and holding up her magic shields she hadn’t even noticed Peggy coming. She turns to see her and, stiffening, gives a surprised, calm smile, raising her hands above her head.

Peggy starts to step forward, cautiously. As soon as her foot lands, Dottie’s expression totally changes. She leaps at Peggy, grappling with her and shoving her backwards against the wall. Peggy’s fighting style has no artistry, but she snaps into action. She tries to throw a punch, but Dottie is all over her, pinning her arms and jerking her backward. Peggy struggles and kicks and breaks free, scrabbling for something to fight Dottie with.

Dottie’s hands are on fire as she faces off against Peggy, turning so she’s blocking Peggy’s way out the exit and positioning Peggy near the vault she was just rooting through. Peggy’s deathly terrified for a moment, but then she sees the color in Dottie’s face and the way she’s shaking slightly as she walks. She’s used immense amounts of power already and every second she’s using more.

Peggy backs up against the vaults against her back and shoves herself forward. Dottie places both hands on Peggy’s shirt for a moment but Peggy twists away before it can burn through. She kicks at Dottie, who kicks back, hitting Peggy solidly in the rubs. The wind is knocked out of her and her legs give way. She’s completely out of breath.

Dottie, too, is slightly panting from physical, if not magical, tiredness. She backs away from Peggy slowly as Peggy lands back against more vaults along the wall. Peggy stumbles and starts to slide downward.

As she slides down the wall, she stretches her hand out for something to break her fall. Her hand lands on the rim of the vault Dottie was looking through. She pulls out something, a large, amethyst brooch, and throws it, hard as she can, at Dottie’s head. Dottie pushes her hand out to the side and grins as it flies towards her, and it veers to the left, clattering harmlessly against the wall. All the magic she has used to let her break into a high-security bank, though, has not only energized her but also made her sloppy, and Dottie falters for a half-step, drunk on euphoria. Still, a half-step is enough. Peggy lunges forward towards Dottie, a bag of coins clutched in her hand. She wraps her arm around Dottie’s, pinning it to her side, and slams the bag against the back of her head.

Dottie falls forward, seemingly in slow-motion. The small, silver pin in her hand drops out of it, shining silver as it falls to the ground. The coins twist and spread out around her head, almost like a halo, and she falls forward, crumpling to the ground face-first.

Peggy stares at what she’s done for a moment, in a total stupor, the bag held limply in her hand. Then, all at once, alarms start blaring. The steel doors in front of her begin to close, the bolts mechanically moving.

Peggy clutches at the pin on the ground, grasping it in her fist, and sprints towards them, dropping the bag of coins. Following her instincts, she hurls her hands out to her sides.

The doors grind to a stop and Peggy feels a heady rush of joy, making her wobble on her feet.  _ So this is what it’s like. _

She tries to shove the feeling away. She has to deal with Dottie. Or call the police.

The alarms are everywhere, tearing rational thoughts in half. The police will be here, and if she’s in the vault when they come, she’ll be under suspicion.

She sprints out the vault and lets the doors finish grinding shut behind her, trapping the unconscious Dottie inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please please leave comments! <33


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coming up: A revelation on the word 'strip mall' and some other magic bullshit

**United States, Present-Day**

The elevator, thank the lord, still works. She slams her hand on floor 1 and lights her hands up again. The small magic barely sends any giddiness to her head, but the big jolt of euphoria from stopping the doors is just starting to wear off. If she gets out of here safely and without being caught, she won’t be able to drive home on her own.

The elevator doors open and she sprints out through the hole she made in the glass.

She keeps running, hard, away from the bank and toward her car. But she doesn’t get far before two squadron cars tear into the parking lot in the strip mall. Three officers get out of the second car, draw their guns, and step towards the bank.

A young woman steps out of the first car and catches sight of Peggy running. “Stop!” she calls after her. It’s a clear order. Peggy stops.

The woman makes her way over to her, relaxing when she sees it’s just a high-school girl. “Put your hands in the air,” she says gently. “Step away from your car, please.”

“It wasn’t me!” Peggy blurts, half-panicked. An arrest, a fucking  _ arrest _ , is the last thing she needs.

“Why were you running out of the bank? And shouldn’t you be in school?” the policewoman asks.

Peggy thinks fast. “Parent teacher conferences. And as for the bank, uh, I saw the hole. In the front door. I wanted to see what I could, I guess. I mean, it’s not every day you see a bank bein’ robbed!” She puts on a Southern American accent, for something of a disguise. If she gets out of this properly, her mom won’t even have to know. And biracial girl with brown hair and an American accent won’t get anyone very far.

“Do you have any idea who robbed the bank?”

Peggy does more thinking. They’ll find it’s Dottie, who is her age, which will throw suspicion back to Peggy again.

“A friend of mine,” she tries.

“A friend of yours?”

“She said she would do it on a dare! Try ’n rob a bank. I wanted to make sure she didn’t, but when I got here, it was too late, and she’d already broken the glass.”

The women looks suspicious. Two more officers come up behind her and stand on either side.

Peggy clenches her fists and decides to try something crazy.

The magic inside her is guiding her, and Peggy panics for half-a-second, remembering Dottie’s words that when you Rift, the magic inside you starts controlling you from a whisper in your own thoughts. But this isn’t a whisper coming from another dimension; it’s just her instincts, wordless and sure. She knows what to do, if she can manage to do it.

She steps up to the female officer and, in one fluid motion, places her hands on her ears and sends a burst of magic energy through her head.

The officer immediately steps back, blinks, and looks around, utterly confused. Peggy doesn’t know how much she’s made her forget, but clearly, it’s enough. A wave of guilt and worry hits her; has she forgotten everything?

“Step away from the officer, ma’am,” one of the other policemen flanking the policewoman tells Peggy, angrily. He’s pretty old and looks like the person you wouldn’t want to mess with.

“No, don’t be mad at her,” the policewoman says, protectively, though she still appears disoriented. “This girl is just doing her shopping. Right?”

Peggy nods, daring to hope that her magic worked the way she wanted.

“Did you see anything unusual? Did you see anyone enter the bank?” she asks.

“She already told you this,” says the same policeman, shifting and placing his hand on his baton. Peggy doesn’t know what he saw, but she decides it was probably only her touching the policewoman on her temples and stepping away. Still, that in itself is suspicious.

She’s relieved, though, that she only seemed to make the woman forget the past two or three minutes. Still, that power is shocking; removing someone’s short-term memory altogether.

“Why are we questioning her?” the woman asks, back to the policemen behind her. The old one who had spoken earlier answers. “She’s a suspect. She was seen running from the direction of the bank. She said a friend of hers robbed it.”

“No, I didn’t!” Peggy exclaims, keeping the accent. “No friend of mine would do such a thing!”

The woman chuckles and turns back to the two men behind her. “It would take quite the high-schooler to rob a high-security bank. Besides, could anyone her age make that large of a hole in the door? They’d have to use some sort of battering ram.”

“The girl did say a friend of hers robbed the bank!”

“I heard no such thing,” the policewoman replies.

Peggy keeps herself stiff, not relaxing, but hoping she soon can. She’s starting to think she really might get out of this one. “I didn’t say anything like that! Really! I was shopping over there -- for new sneakers -- and I heard a crash and ran away!”

The old police officer steps towards her. “Your story just completely changed, girl.”

Peggy pretends to move to push him away and half-slaps him on the side of his head, removing his memory, too. He staggers back, all the anger in his mind being replaced by blankness. “What?” he asks, to nobody in particular.

“Vernon, are you alright?” asks the younger male police officer, who had been silent until now. “Did she hurt you?”

“This girl? Of course not.”

“Why are we still questioning her?” Lise asks. Vernon shrugs. “I honestly don’t know.”

The third officer clears his throat. “She lied to you about what she was doing.”

“Did she?”

“Did she?”

“Yes,” he says slowly, as if he can’t believe how dumb his superiors are. “First, she-“

Peggy lunges forward towards him reaches up and sends her magic through his head, too. “Stop telling lies!” she yells at him, so it seems like a gesture of anger.

“Step away from the officer,” the woman tells her, firmly. Peggy does.

The policewoman looks around, still confused. She can’t grasp onto any reason to continue questioning the girl.

“I’m sorry to detain you like this. I think you can go?”

Peggy smiles and starts to relax, ever-so-slightly. “Thank you, ma’am.”

The youngest officer is utterly confused. All three of them are. Another policewoman starts shouting from within the bank. “We caught the burglar! We caught the burglar!”

Peggy gives the other officers a tight smile, walks to her car, and closes the door. The officers give crisp nods to her and turn to help their compatriots in the bank.

Peggy turns and drives away, but her head is spinning from all the magic she’s used in a short amount of time. She does feel half-drunk and knows she shouldn’t be driving, so in less then a mile, she pulls over into a small neighborhood and calls the number one on her favorites list, who picks up immediately.

“Angie. I need a rescue.”

“I’ll be right there,” Angie promises without a second thought, even though she’s in history class. Looking to see the teacher across the room engaged in conversation with Jack Thompson, she digs in her backpack for her car keys, runs to the bathroom, and locks herself in the furthest stall. Exhaling, she asks, “Where are you?”

“The corner of,” Peggy looks up to the nearest street sign, “Amberwood and Elm.”

“Ooh, fancy. That’s right by Amberwood Strip Mall, right?” She starts to laugh. “Oh my god. I just realized. Strip mall.”

“What about it?” Peggy’s irritated; she’s still nervous the officers will come after her.

“Strip mall. Like a strip club? Oh my god. It sounds so different now. Strip mall. Oh my god.”

Peggy can’t help but break into a silly smile. “Be here soon, okay? I need you.”

“I’ll be right there, English. I’ve got my keys right now.”

There’s the sound of jangling. “See?” 

“Got it.”

Peggy hangs up and climbs back into her car, pressing on the accelerator and continuing just slightly farther down the street. A man comes out of his house with a small child in a stroller and turns to look at Peggy, surprised. Her instincts guide her again and she makes eye contact with the man and sort of  _ pushes  _ his gaze to the side. The man immediately stops looking at her and starts pushing the stroller towards her down the street, passing by her as if she’s invisible. Peggy looks down at her body. She’s still visible in every respect.  _ How did I do that? _

It barely took any energy at all. Peggy’s still reeling a bit from the amounts of power she’s used, but the tiny trick hardly added to it.

She waits for someone else to come out of the house, but nobody does. The neighborhood really is quiet --  _ No, not quite _ , she realizes, hearing a lawnmower from a nearby lawn. She parks her car on the side of the road and waits for Angie to get there, playing some Troye Sivan from her favorite playlist.

It doesn’t take her long. Peggy recognizes her family’s Impala pulling into the neighborhood, and Peggy, still wobbly, steps out of her car.

 

“I’m here, English,” Angie says, a smile on her face.


	32. Chapter 32

**United States, Present-Day**

Back at Peggy’s house, Angie plops down onto Peggy’s bed. “So your girlfriend was after this?” she asks, holding up the small silver pin. It’s got an A on it and it’s about three inches long, silver in color, and not all that remarkable.

“Yes,” says Peggy, sliding it from Angie’s hand and examining it. “Why would she break into a vault just for this?”

“I dunno.” Angie gives Peggy a piercing look. “When I said we were in this together, I meant it. If you know what it is, you  _ can _ tell me.”

_ I can’t let you into this, Angie, or you’ll be a target too _ , Peggy wants to tell her. It’s on the edge of her tongue, as if it might trip out any second. “I honestly don’t know what this pin is.” And she doesn’t.

Angie nods. “Alright. So I guess the next order of business is to figure out why Dottie wanted it so bad. I can’t imagine they sell them on Amazon, or she should’ve just -- hey, do you think it’s enchanted somehow?”

Peggy turns it over in her hand. “I don’t think so. There’s nothing… I think it’s just a normal pin.”

“That’s so weird. I mean, she should just be able to buy one or make one. Why would she -- she didn’t take any money, did she?”

“No. Or I attacked her before she could -- regardless, I’m pretty sure all she wanted was this.”

Angie shakes her head. “I’m lost. I don’t know what the pin means, but I’ll snap a photo of it and do some research for you. But I have got to get back to school.”

“Of course..” Peggy places the pin down on her bedside table and wraps Angie in a hug. “Thank you for sticking with me. Make sure my mom doesn’t see you on the way out. She’s in her study, so she’s pretty out of it, but you never know.”

“I will. Thanks for including me.” 

Peggy feels a little stab of guilt. 

“And just because you’re a witch now doesn’t mean you’re any different. You’re still Peggy Carter.”

She separates herself from Peggy and snaps a photo of the pin lying flat on the table. “Bye now, English.”

 

Peggy walks her to her door, carefully tiptoeing with her past her mother’s study, and then retreats back upstairs, still puzzling over the mystery of the pin.


	33. Chapter 33

Whitney Frost grinds her teeth and stretches her hands into her hair, pulling it down by her chin and groaning. Dottie Underwood failed.

Hissing to nobody in particular, she clenches her fist. Far away, the dark oily cuff slides off Dottie’s wrist and begins its long trek back to Whitney. Unsatisfied with everything, Whitney stands, walks to her closet, and chooses her fanciest dress. Once she slides it on, she feels a bit more in control. Adjusting the ruffles by the neckline, she practices her strongest glare at the wall and sweeps out the door, intent on punishing someone for Underwood’s failure.

Outside, she kills three squirrels with Zero Matter and then storms back up to her room, furious.


	34. Chapter 34

**United States, Present-Day**

It’s two weeks before Peggy hears anything from Dottie again. She keeps the pin around her neck on a silver chain. It’s shocking how quickly school becomes a priority again -- but being an 11th grader, the workload is intense. Her head gets injured again when someone accidentally opens the bathroom door right as she was leaving in a spot very similar to where she was concussed, another event that pushed Dottie farther from her mind. And there were math tests, a science research paper on chromosome abnormalities. In other words, school. Dottie still crosses her mind often, but practical concerns become equally and then more pressing.

When she does run into Dottie again, it’s through Angie.

“I finally found her,” she says, plopping her tray across from Peggy’s and sitting down across from her at the library table one Monday at lunch. “I was looking for her name again.”

“Hmf?” Peggy asks, her mouth full. She swallows her pasta and a twinge of pain shoots through her head. “Who now? You don’t mean -- Dottie?”

“Mm-HMM.” Angie fixes Peggy with a look and then jerks her laptop from her bag, flipping it open and rotating the screen to face Peggy. “Look familiar?”

“That’s her,” says Peggy, suddenly breathless. It’s a photo of people in what looks like a prison cafeteria, eating some sort of brown gunk that’s maybe chicken. They are all wearing the same clothes -- a white collared shirt and grey pants of a material Peggy can’t identify. All the other girls at the table have their heads bent over their food but one, who is staring the camera head-on, like a challenge. It’s a face Peggy knows.

Dottie, smiling at her from the photo, does not have the blonde and curly hair Peggy is used to. Instead, it’s dark brown and straight, pulled back from her face in an austere ponytail, and there is none of the red lipstick she so loves on her face. She looks oddly washed-out, less dangerous -- but the smile of the girl, Peggy notes, is still twisted up sarcastically -- the only thing that has remained the same.

“She’s in juvie.”

“How’d you find this?”

“Facial recognition. I went back to Toby’s Ice Cream, asked for the security footage of when we’d been there. Downloaded it; told him it was for a school real-crime analysis project. I ran her face through the internet. This is all it pulled up. She’s at Eastwood Juvenile Detention Center. Here’s the site.”

She switches tabs.

Peggy takes a long look, scribbling down in the address and visiting hours. 

“You’ll need to be eligible to visit,” Angie notes. “I don’t think ‘ex-girlfriend-and-almost-murder-victim’ is gonna fly.”

Peggy snorts. “You’re probably right. But if Dottie could get into a high-security bank…”

“Then you can probably get into there,” Angie finishes. “Although… why isn’t Dottie out yet? If you have magic, it probably can’t be  _ that  _ hard to escape.”

“That’s a good point. Maybe it’s harder than it looks.”

“Yeah. I mean, this place is a freaking prison. I can’t imagine she’d wanna stick around.”

“Maybe the way to get in is to fool people into thinking I’m someone I’m not. Dottie was able to change her face. I don’t think I’ll be able to do that… but I can do something else. Watch.”

Peggy hits her hand on the table, sending a TWACK around the room. A few pairs of eyes turn towards her. Immediately, Peggy grasps their gazes -- just like she did at Amberwood -- and pushes them aside. Instantly, they resume reading, their interest gone entirely.

“Holy. Shit.”

“Isn’t it cool?”

“Peggy, that’s dangerous.” Alarm is clearly written across Angie’s face. She drops her voice and whispers furiously, “Peggy, messing with someone’s mind -- that’s a Dottie thing. You can’t -- yes, it’s cool, but -- be careful! Holy fuck!”

“Shh,” Peggy whispers back. “It’s okay. I won’t do it again.” She pauses.  _ A Dottie thing. _ “You’re right.”

Angie bites her lip. “Okay,” she says, unconvinced. “I’m trusting you to make the right call on this one. And hey. When you go after her? Be careful.”


	35. Chapter 35

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! Have an extra-long chapter!

**United States, Present-Day**

That day after school, Peggy drives over, wearing a wig and glasses and following her phones GPS. She pulls up in front of the building and hops out of her car, scanning and noticing two security cameras on either side of the gate. 

A blue car approaches the gate, speaks to a guard next to it, and is buzzed in. Holding a screen of gaze-shifting (her name for it) around her, Peggy dashes through the gates after the car and drops down low behind a well-manicured bush.

A few minutes later, she gets back up, straightens her dress, and walks in the door.

Everyone she meets, she carefully turns their eyes from her. It’s simple, this magic; not nearly as esoteric or complex as she’d believed. Her ability to shift people’s gazes from her has grown exponentially, enough that she can mask entire hallways from view. That and a wig and glasses and nobody has the faintest idea who she is.

Dottie will, of course.

She makes her way further down the hallway. After tracking Dottie all the way to the bank, there’s a certain intuitive sense inside Peggy, a sense that tells her that Dottie’s close by. Close by and upstairs. Peggy ascertains she’s on the second floor.

Up the stairs she goes. The second floor hallway is almost empty, but then a middle-aged, overweight man comes out a door and stops her. “Excuse me, Miss,” he says, scanning her up and down to determine whether or not she’s an inmate. He decides she’s not. “We are not accepting visitors at this time.”

Peggy smiles walks close to him. She places her hands on either side of his head and, before he can react, sends a bolt of magic right through his temples. She steps back.

He blinks for a moment. “What’s your name, darling?” he asks, the last two minutes obliterated from his mind.

“Wanda,” Peggy replies, and slips past him. “I’m allowed to be here. I’m here to visit a friend.”

“Right,” the man says, disoriented. “Right. I’ll… be on my way then.”

Peggy takes two more steps but the man stops her again. “We’re not accepting visitors at this time,” he says, still confused.

Peggy rolls her eyes and zaps him again. He falls over this time and she zaps him again for good measure. Coming into her powers is fun, but she feels guilty seeing his prone form. Angie’s words again echo.  _ A Dottie thing _ . Irritated, Peggy brushes it from her mind.

She’s forgotten something, though.  _ How is Dottie going to know I’m here? _  She’ll need the man to wake up.

It takes four minutes. Peggy casts a simple repulsor spell over the hallway an extension of her gaze-shift spell, removing anyone nearby’s desire to enter the place. The man finally opens his eyes. “Sir,” says Peggy, “I need to talk to a delinquent.” She delights in calling Dottie that; she deserves it.

The man is utterly puzzled by now. Last he remembers, he was exiting a room. Now he’s lying flat on the floor with a stranger hovering over him, asking to talk to one of the inmates.

“Uh, which one?” he gets to his feet.

Peggy hopes Dottie’s used that name. “Dottie Underwood? Dorothy?”

The man’s face changes. “That one’s a handful.”

Of course she is. Peggy inwardly groans. “I have protection.”

The man nods. “Who should I tell her is here?”

Peggy smiles. “I think she’ll know.”

The man shrugs. “She’s in her room.” He points down the hallway.

“Is there anyone else in there?”

“Sure; a few other girls. Her roommates.”

He shakes his head slowly. “I don’t envy them.”

“Could you please get them out of there? I have to talk with just Dot-Dorothy.”

The man nods. “As long as I don’t have to deal with her.”

Peggy hates to think what Dottie must have done to the poor employees -- not guards, she reminds herself -- this isn’t a jail -- with her powers and manipulation.

The man walks into one of the rooms on the hallway and raps on the door, then enters. Peggy waits patiently, and in a few moments he walks out with a few other girls behind him. Peggy notices that they’re not at all what she’d expect juvenile delinquents to look like, and realizes just as fast she should not have had an assumption about how juvenile delinquents would look.

She smiles at the girls as the man leads them by her. Only one smiles back; none of them look like they’re used to being smiled at. Peggy feels like her heart is breaking a little but swallows it. She even gives them a little wave.

Then she steels herself and opens the door they come out of, knowing Dottie, a literal threat to her life, is behind it.

 

She’s sitting on her bed, in the room she must share with the five other girls. It’s grey and nondescript; there are two windows facing the entrance of the building and the gated parking lot. From a quick glance, three faded posters are hung around the room; one of some K-Pop stars, one of The X-Files, and one for a metal band Peggy doesn’t recognize. If it’s any indication, and Peggy’s willing to bet that it is, the people in here aren’t that different from everybody else.

In the bottom part of every bed there’s a drawer, labeled Valuables. Peggy’s willing to bet all the money in her bank account that Dottie’s is perfectly empty. She doesn’t know how she feels about that.

“Look at you, Peggy,” Dottie sighs, her first words. “Using magic. Manipulating minds. Sneaking in. You’re turning into me, aren’t you?”

The very thought makes Peggy squirm. Dottie was sent to kill her. She attempted to rob a bank. Clearly, she is a despicable creature. But there’s something pitiable about her, too.

“Your hair’s still dyed,” Peggy says, instead of dignifying Dottie with an answer.

Dottie smiles and pulls at her ponytail. “Yes, it is,” she replies. “Don’t I look different?”

It’s true. Without her lipstick and her blonde curls, she’s nearly unrecognizable. Which gives Peggy another thought.

“Why are you still in here?” she asks, settling on the bed across from Dottie’s. “You have incredible powers. You could be out of here in a heartbeat.”

Dottie shakes her head. “I almost Rifted,” she replies. “Twice. Using any more power now, before enough time has passed, could push me over the edge.”

Peggy is skeptical. The attempted bank robbery was over two weeks ago, as was the incident that had left Peggy passed out on the school lawn. She shudders to think of what might have happened to her had Angie, the aptly-named angel, not found her before someone else had.

Still, she doesn’t push. If Dottie wants to hide in Juvie, let her.

“Seeing you is a real treat, Pegs,” Dottie smirks.

“How do you mean?” Peggy’s immediately on-guard.

Dottie’s sharp grin widens and she’s immediately more recognizable as herself.  _ She’s got a real bitchy smile _ , Peggy thinks,  _ but then again, so do I, when I want to _ .

“Well, let’s see.” Dottie starts to count on her fingers. “You came here in disguise, not as Peggy Carter. That means you don’t want anyone to know you’re here, which means you’re probably keeping some secrets.”

She raises her eyebrows. “How naughty.”

Peggy almost scowls but realizes that’s exactly what Dottie wants. She bites her tongue, figuratively and literally, and lets her keep talking.

“So, if you aren’t officially here to pay me a visit and you’ve gone to such great lengths to hide the fact that you came at all, I think the reason for your visit is pretty obvious.”

She flutters her eyelashes and looks up at Peggy coyly. “You need my help.”

Peggy does scowl this time. Dottie had that figured out in a heartbeat. But it’s true. “It’s Whitney Frost,” she says. “She’s Rifted.”

Dottie nods. “I know.”

Peggy shifts backward in her chair, surprised. 

Dottie’s smile fades a bit. “She caught me. That’s how I ended up here.”

“You ended up here because you tried to rob a bank and  _ I _ caught  _ you _ ,” Peggy reminds her. Dottie looks truly amused and shakes her head. “I only robbed the bank to get an Arena Club pin.”

“An Arena Club pin?” Peggy pulls it out of her pocket, immediately planning to use it as a bargaining chip, as leverage. “You mean this?”

Dottie snatches for it but Peggy whisks it away. “Tell me more.”

Dottie retreats to her relaxed stance and crosses her legs. “Frost wanted it. If you have an Arena Club pin, you’re automatically part of the most elite coven of witches there is -- the Council of Nine. I promised to steal it for her, but I was really going to take it for myself and then run.”

“Clever.”

“Not clever enough, apparently.” She’s fake bitter, but under that, really bitter. Peggy almost empathizes, but catches herself.

Dottie shifts again. Peggy frowns almost imperceptibly. Something doesn’t quite add up. Something about the pin.

“You said if you have a pin, you’re automatically in the club?”

“Well, yes. They’re enchanted to be impossible to duplicate. Basically, if you have a pin given to you, it’s a sign that you’re thought to be worthy of an existing member. If you give your pin away, that’s a sign that you’re not worthy anymore and are passing it on to someone who is. If you’re powerful or clever enough to  _ steal _ a pin, you’ve earned your place, in their mind. If you’re weak or stupid enough to have your pin stolen, you don’t deserve your place there anymore.”

_ It almost makes sense, in a sick, twisted way _ , Peggy thinks. “And what does membership to the Arena Club get you?”

Dottie shrugs. “They make the world. Headlines, politics, excuses… a lot of it they cook up.”

“In the witches’ world or in the real one?”

Dottie looks half-offended and Peggy claims that as a victory. “They’re the same world,” she notifies Peggy, irked. “Tons of female politicians and celebrities are witches. Still, no magic can conquer sexism.”

“A shame, that.”

“So we  _ do _ agree on something.”

“Every human worth their salt agrees with  _ that _ , Dottie.”

She starts to stand. Getting Dottie to think the conversation is over might be a way to get her to talk; Peggy knows that  _ she _ hates it when people walk out on her when she’s still talking. Dottie, however, remains impassive. Peggy stands the rest of the way up and promtly bangs her head against the bunk above her. Instantly, she is overcome with dizziness from her head. The world rocks, wheeling dizzily, and Peggy almost lets out a groan.


	36. Chapter 36

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie breaks into a smile. “You’re hurt, Peg!” Her voice is thick with fake concern.

Peggy clenches at her temple, trying to get everything twirling around her to calm down. Waves of pain are shooting through her to the rhythm of her heartbeat, augmented, she thinks, not only by the head-banging but by the magic she just used.

Dottie’s smile widens. “You’re  _ real _ hurt.”

Peggy sits back down. “You slammed a rock into my head and ran for the woods.” She doesn’t mention the bathroom door, because that’s just embarrassing.

“I  _ do _ regret it.” She seems almost defensive, but is still smiling.

“Really now?”

“Of course! It’s what got me into this mess in the first place.” She throws her arms out to her sides in a woe-is-me gesture. “It’s tragic.”

Peggy draws her mouth into a slash. “Well, false regrets aside, I do, in fact need your help. Whitney Frost is trying to Rift the world.”

“She’s  _ what _ ?” The surprise and half-horror is perhaps the first real emotion Peggy has seen. She uses it to her advantage, instantly. “She wants to create a machine that will crack open the world that the magic, that the Zero Matter lives in. She wants more of it.”

Dottie stands up and repeats herself. “She what?”

“I need someone to help me take her down. You can change your features. You be the unknown face, and I can get a disguise. But you have more control over your powers. You’re the most powerful witch I know. If Leviathan has so many witches and sent you, you must be one of the most powerful witches in the world.” She hopes flattery will get her somewhere. “I need you to really stop her.”

Dottie pretends to consider it. “You seem to be doing alright on your own, Pegs.”

“You  _ will _ do this with me.” Dottie laughs. “What makes you so sure?”

“Well,” Peggy gestures to her bed and the grey, boring room. “This will be your home for the foreseeable future, otherwise.”

“It takes more than six walls to hold me.”

“Six?”

“We’re in a cube, Peggy. Do try and keep up.”

Peggy rolls her eyes, pretending she’s not miffed. “I think it’s clear you haven’t escaped yet because you’re hiding.”

“Hiding?” Dottie is mock-offended, or maybe using mock-offense to hide real offense. “What makes you say something so rude?”

“You’ve gone rogue. You’re severed from Leviathan, you don’t have the Arena Club pin, and you certainly aren’t siding with me.”

“Well, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, as they say.” Dottie stands and takes two steps over to Peggy, so she’s close enough to reach out and touch her.

“We’re not friends,” Peggy replies firmly, shifting on the bed.

“No, we’re not,” Dottie whispers. She grabs onto Peggy by the shoulders and kisses her fiercely, then fiercer, pressing her backwards until she’s lying flat on the bed underneath her. Peggy starts to struggle and Dottie immediately releases her, laughing and standing back up. There’s something small and silver clutched in her hand.

“You were saying? About that Arena Club pin?”

She waves it in front of Peggy’s face, having lifted it out of her pocket. “You got so  _ distracted _ when I kissed you. I wonder why.”

Peggy clenches her hands into fists. “Give it back, Dottie.”

“You seem to have lost the only leverage you had to make me help you,” Dottie observes, turning the pin over and over in her hands. “I did want this. Thank you for providing.”

Peggy is infuriated. Dottie could, likely, use her powers to get herself out any time, so it’s not like Peggy could play the saviour and break her out of jail. Now that she has the pin, Peggy’s the one at a disadvantage.

Quickly, though, she realizes that she has another way to get Dottie to help her. But she’ll use it as a last resort, because it might or might not be a bluff. She’s banking on Dottie not knowing how good or not-good Peggy is with her powers. So she tries to use a more moral argument, knowing there’s only about a 50/50 chance of it succeeding.

“If you don’t help me stop Whitney Frost, she could open up her Rift and break the entire world. If she lets in that stuff from the other dimension, it could devour everything. That’s its nature, isn’t it? It’s taken over Whitney and is making her do this, right?”

“For someone here only to try and use now-irrelevant leverage to enlist my aid, you sure don’t seem confident in your information.”

She puts on high-pitched voice, intended to imitate Peggy. “Is that right?”

Peggy is livid inside, angry as she’s ever been. Dottie is every bit her match, and more, perhaps.

“Well, am I right or not?”

“The magic is only called Zero Matter in its home dimension. When witches like you and me use it, it flows through us, almost as if we’re power converters or electricity wires. It comes out as magic,” she waves a hand and pale blue sparks the color of her eyes fly around it, “not as the weird, oily, black goop that Zero Matter is. But a Rifted witch uses that oily black goop, like she’s pulling the energy from the socket without wires or converters. So it’s more powerful, but it also has an agenda of its own. And that agenda, it’s pretty clear, is to take over our world and, to use the word you did, ‘devour’ it. Theory has it it’s devoured everything in its own world, and perhaps the nuclear explosions weren’t botched, really.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, maybe the eruption put a small crack in this dimension that the Zero Matter took advantage of.”

The thought of a black, oily liquid with a mind of its own that can infect you gives Peggy chills in a way she’s never felt.

It’s familiar, too. She turns to look at the X-Files poster on the wall.

“It’s just like that episode. Tunguska.”

Dottie nods. “Strange coincidence, huh? Maybe the Tunguska event, whatever it was, brought more Zero Matter to this dimension. Maybe someone saw a Rifted witch and got ideas. Though,” she ponders, “it might not be as likely. After all, very few see a Rifted witch use her powers in front of them and live to tell the tale, let alone make a TV show on it.”

“Well, you saw her and lived.”

Dottie scowls but covers it quickly with another fake smile. “I could still die yet, Carter. Don’t hold your breath.”

Peggy shrugs a shoulder. “I wouldn’t care if you did.”

Dottie puts on mock-offense. “Says the girl who came in here  _ begging _ for my help!”

“I didn’t beg!” Peggy has never begged. It’s a source of pride for her.

“Oh, Pegs. You’re so easy to bait,” Dottie sighs. “I’ll help you. But if I do, you let me go. You don’t try to lock me up anywhere and you don’t send me back to Leviathan.”

Peggy nods. “We have a deal.”

Dottie smiles and stands, clenching her fists. Peggy’s eyes start to slide right off her. With effort, she fixes them back onto Dottie’s face. “Good spell. I thought you said you were in danger of Rifting.”

Dottie ignores the second part, focusing on the ‘good spell.’ “Thanks.” She slides off her bed, reaching to the drawer in it and lifting out something. Peggy hides her surprise. It’s a book, and a familiar one. L. Frank Baum’s  _ The Wonderful Wizard of Oz _ . It’s a  _ very _ familiar one, actually. Peggy recognizes it as Griffith’s library’s copy.

_ Her one ‘valuable’ is something lent to her, something she’ll have to give back. _

_ Well, she’ll probably just steal it. _

They walk out the door side-by-side, Dottie bumping against Peggy sometimes, just because she can. “Stop doing that,” Peggy hisses sideways. Dottie bumps her one more time and laughs.

“Just so we're clear, I know you'll try to run, and I'm prepared for it,” Peggy tells Dottie as they turn the corner down the last hallway before the exit door.

“Just so we're clear, I know your offer to let me go is a lie, and you can never be fully prepared for me.”

Peggy nods. She’s comfortable with this. “Then we're in agreement. You'll help me defeat Frost, and then I'll lock you back up in this cell.”

Dottie smirks as if she’s already found a way out. Peggy decides she’s bluffing. “Come on, then. Let’s go.”


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LONG UPDATE AHEAD!

**United States, Present-Day**

They’re halfway through the parking lot when Peggy’s head starts to hurt again. The bright light outside is stabbing into her, her head throbbing and the inside of her eyelids red.

Dottie makes a noise of fake-pity. “Poor Carter,” she simpers. “Sun getting to you?”

Peggy would rather be permanently blinded by the light than admit to weakness in front of Dottie. “I’m fine.”

Dottie shrugs. “Suit yourself. I’m taking sunglasses.”

She waves her hand and conjures a pair over her eyes. Just to mess with Peggy, they’re identical to the ones she owns, the “secret agent” glasses that Jakab often commented on. Or maybe she somehow magically stole them. Peggy grinds her teeth and swallows her pain.

They hail a taxi, because why the hell not. Dottie doesn’t have a phone, and conjuring one, she claims, would take too much effort, so the task falls to Peggy. They walk a little ways away from the Detention center, just so there aren’t many suspicions.

“Your wig is listing,” Dottie notifies Peggy. Irked, Peggy shifts it on her head so it’s resting right. Dottie gives a small, imperious smile but refrains from saying anything else.

The car arrives quicker than either of them had expected. “That was lucky,” Peggy remarks.

Dottie laughs, a sharp little giggle. “Luck always bends in witches’ favor, Peggy. You’d have noticed, if you paid attention.”

They clamber in the back, the energy between them palpable. Peggy hands the driver a slip of paper with her address on it and requests him, politely, to take them there. Unsurprisingly, Dottie makes a rude remark when she sees it’s Peggy’s home address. “So is it our second date?”

Peggy scoffs and rolls her eyes, folding her arms irritatedly. Dottie smiles and decides to push Peggy’s buttons again. “There’s no shame in admitting you still love me.”

Peggy controls her anger. “I never did. It was all your tricks.”

Dottie shrugs. “Witches can’t control others’ emotions. Everything you felt was your own.”

Peggy starts for a moment. Dottie could be lying, but something tells her she’s not. Still, she forces that little voice down. Dottie can’t be telling the truth. It was all manipulation.

The driver casts an incurious glance back, checking to see if the large truck behind them is tailgating or just being obnoxious. Clearly, not even the discussion of witches can bring him out of his job-induced stupor. He’s probably dealt with much worse.

Peggy can’t blame him for his disinterest. She’s in a bit of a stupor herself, a feeling that’s growing now as Dottie falls silent and more thoughts set in. She just broke a would-be murderer and an attempted bank-robber out of a juvenile detention facility she belongs in. She just helped Dottie Underwood -- Ida Emke -- an agent sent to kill her. She used magic to alter the memory of a guard to help Dottie.

And now they’re sitting together in a car, close enough to touch. Peggy suppresses a shudder.

Then she casts a glance at Dottie, who is, surprisingly, not pasting on her infuriating smile. She’s looking out the window, looking actually thoughtful. As soon as she senses Peggy’s eyes on her, though, her face closes off like the slamming of two shutters, and the half-smile returns. “What is it, Peg?”

Peggy shakes her head. “Nothing.”

Dottie turns back to the window, facing directly away from Peggy so Peggy can’t see her face at all.

 

The rest of the drive is silent. Peggy pays the driver and tips him an extra dollar. Dottie observes and has lifted Peggy’s wallet out of her back pocket by the time they reach the house.

When Peggy doesn’t let on that she noticed it’s gone, Dottie sulkingly puts it back. Peggy did notice, in fact, but hadn’t commented, hoping that would be Dottie’s reaction. The fact that it was secretly delights Peggy; Dottie’s ceasing to become such an unknown entity. And if Peggy can start to predict her, she can start to control her.

The two girls walk into Peggy’s living room. Peggy thanks her lucky stars that Charlie has a sports tournament -- with scouts in attendance, he’d bragged -- and that her dedicated mother is going to the entire thing.

“So when do we start?” Dottie asks. Her body language makes it clear that she’s comfortable and familiar with Peggy’s home. Pretty much every move of Dottie’s is calculated to annoy her, Peggy realizes, and her anger soon turns to a small golden feeling; something like victory. Dottie constantly wants to get a rise out of her, which means she cares about Peggy’s reactions to her antics. Meaning she’s not as emotionless as she wants Peggy to think she is; she wants to prove her superiority. That’s a motivator. Peggy files it away.

“Right now.”

She leaves Dottie in the living room and takes two steps up to the upstairs “playroom” (that’s what they used to call it when she and Charlie were young and the name just stuck, even when they outgrew the childish toys in there), where most of the paper is kept. It’s more of a craft room than anything else, and it’s relaxing to be in, since there are many windows with pretty, pale curtains adding to the effect of airiness. However, she doesn’t even make it to the third step when she hears a crash and a playful “oops!” from Dottie.

She whirls around. One of the blue-and-white porcelain vases her mother keeps on the mantelpiece is shattered around Dottie’s feet.

Dottie shrugs. “Accidents happen!”

Peggy sees red. Dottie is crossing over into being a bully, and she’s taken things too far. “That is my mother’s,” Peggy hisses, coming down the stairs towards her purposefully, her feet landing hard on each step. “She has had that for years. It’s special to her. And you just destroyed it.”

Dottie laughs, but is there maybe a hint of fear in it? No. Not fear. Apprehension? Maybe. “If it means so much to you, Peg,” she lifts her hand into the air, “Fine. I’ll fix it.”

Every piece of porcelain rises into the air and starts to coalesce. The wood around Dottie’s feet starts to darken in a circular pattern. “On the rug!” Peggy shouts.

Dottie shifts sideways and continues to work her spell. Within seconds, the vase is fully repaired in Dottie’s hands.

Peggy marches over and snatches it from her, returning it to its rightful place. There are miniscule, hairline cracks all over it, but Peggy knows her mom won’t be able to tell. She’s furious with Dottie but also relieved that the case is intact, yet also mad that it’s cracked now, and the juxtaposed emotions of the two angers and the relief are so unpleasant she forces it all from her mind at once.

“Don’t you dare touch anything, Underwood,” she orders. “I am getting paper. We’re going to combine all our knowledge and put together the puzzle of this Whitney Frost.”

Dottie nods, finally losing her baiting attitude and becoming ruthless efficiency. Peggy can tell from the shift of her posture, from the vanishing of the smile. She wants to take Whitney down. Though, Peggy thinks, it’s more likely she wants to take Whitney down to prove herself more powerful, rather than to save the world.

Still, for the time being, they can share the common goal. And then after, Peggy will return Dottie to the detention facility. Somehow. And she’ll make her stay there. Somehow. Maybe she really can’t get out of there.

Peggy decides she’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.

Meanwhile, Dottie wanders over towards Peggy’s dining room table, deciding she might as well make herself at home. The pain Whitney caused her is not gone from her mind, but it’s made her more determined to take the Rifted witch down. Dottie is, in fact, one of the most powerful witches in the world, and she knows it. And the fact that, despite her years of rigorous training, despite her years of blood and fire tearing herself apart, figuratively and literally, Whitney had Dottie at her mercy just with the touch of her hand. She’d been brought low. And if there’s one thing Dottie cannot tolerate, it’s being brought low.

She needs a distraction. So she reaches into her purse and pulls out The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, picking up where she left off.

 

Peggy returns with the paper. She looks around frantically for a moment before spotting Dottie at her dining room table. She’s got her Wizard of Oz book, her one “valuable,” in her hands, and she’s flipping through it. As soon as she sees Peggy, though, she shoves it back into her purse.

Peggy slams down the sheets of paper. “Diagram out everything you know about Rifts and dimensions and zero matter and magic.”

Dottie sighs and looks disappointed. “You can’t say ‘you will tell me this and this and this!’ Where’s your technique?”

“This isn’t an interrogation, Underwood. This is a collaboration.”

“Peggy, I already explained all of this to you! Don’t tell me you weren’t clever enough to take it all in?”

Peggy utterly doesn’t take the bait. “Just write it down.”

 

Dottie rolls her eyes and takes a generic yellow Ticonderoga pencil from the pencil case at the far end of the table (there are lots of writing utensils on the table, since Charlie and Peggy do their homework there). “World’s best pencil, as they say,” she remarks. Then she starts to write.

Immediately and almost against her will, she’s lost in the task of it, the world of information and concentration and cleverness and paper. In another world, Dottie could have been a master codebreaker, Peggy thinks. She then reminds herself to stop thinking of Dottie as a person and more as an asset. But it’s hard. Because Dottie didn’t choose to be this way. It was her training, wasn’t it? If Peggy were in her place, would she turn out the same way?

The thoughts are uncomfortable, and Peggy has something else to focus on, so she pushes them out of her head. Later. She’ll dissect them later. For now, she has to save the world.

She takes her own pencil and sheet of paper and starts making two columns, labeled What I Know and What I Want To. She starts writing down everything she wants Dottie to write down, to add to the puzzle. “Arena Club. Arena Club Pins. Rifts. Dimensions. Zero Matter. Possible ways to recreate Rifts. Situations in which Rifts have occurred.” Some of it she already knows, but it bears repeating. And it certainly bears writing down, to visualize and connect to other topics. “Extent of a single Non-Rifted Witch’s Power. Extent of a single Rifted Witch’s power.” That’s all she can think of at the moment, so she passes the list to Dottie.

Dottie stops the sheet of paper she’s working on and scans Peggy’s list up and down. She copies the headers onto separate pages and starts to fill them out. She’s silent, and Peggy gets the idea that she’s used to voiceless work. Still, it’s odd that she’s being so co-operative, and Peggy wonders what the ulterior motive is. Still, she’ll take what she can get. A co-operative, plotting Dottie is exponentially better than a non-co-operative plotting Dottie, which is what she’d be otherwise.

While Dottie works her way down the list, Peggy writes Whitney Frost across a sheet. Everything Dottie writes will connect to her some way or another. Which reminds her; she’ll need the string.

“Keep working,” she tells Dottie. Then she leaves to see if her mother’s knitting yarn will suffice.

Dottie keeps working. She’ll make Whitney pay, even if it means collaborating with her target.

“Arena Club. A secret group of witches who act almost like a governing body. Extremely powerful and influential. Control a lot of world events, politics, news coverage. Un-replicable pins prove membership. Pins can be stolen or received as gifts. Have a trademark insignia.”

Below that, she sketches out the A that represents the club. It’s a symbol familiar to every witch over the age of 14 years old.

“Arena Club Pins. Show membership to the Arena Club. They and their insignia are recognized by all witches and grant instant respect to the bearer. Having a pin means one is automatically inducted into the club. Losing a pin is perfectly tantamount to the opposite.

Rifts. Cracks between our dimension and the dimension magic originates in. Can be created through massive blasts of energy. Can also occur within oneself, if the energy they use overwhelms their physical form as a bomb blast would overwhelm the surrounding area. They appear as black cracks, either on a person or in the sky.

Dimensions. Not fully understood by science. Are considered purely theoretical by many. Clearly, they are breachable through massive amounts of concentrated energy, such as meteor impacts or earthquakes or volcanic eruptions or bomb blasts. One dimension is the dimension of Zero Matter.

Zero Matter. What magic is called in its home dimension and in its pure, unfiltered form. Witches act as a filter, meaning that the Zero Matter comes out of them as something different, something just called magic or sorcery. Zero Matter has no mass and no shape, but it does not take the shape of its container. It also has some sort of rudimentary sentience that is malignant; it wants to take over and control our dimension, perhaps because it has eaten away its own dimension. When a witch Rifts, it can control her as a whisper that seems to come from within her own thoughts.

Possible Ways to Recreate Rifts. Set off a bomb in an enclosed space or a nuclear explosion anywhere. Force a volcano to erupt. A giant expulsion of energy.”

A new idea occurs to her. “One could also, theoretically, gather a crowd of witches and force them to direct their magical energy to opening a Rift.”

She stares at what she wrote and taps her pencil on her chin. She’s still focusing on it when Peggy comes down. “String and tape and a dismantled cardboard box are in my room. When you’re done writing, let’s move everything upstairs or Mom’ll see this.”

Dottie nods and keeps writing. She could misinform Peggy, but she doesn’t see any benefit to doing so… yet.

“Situations in Which Rifts have Occurred. Mostly speculation. Meteors. Mt. Vesuvius. Mt. Etna? Nuclear explosion(s) in 1940s (NOT JAPAN).

“Extend of a Rifted witch’s power. Unknown.”

She puts her pencil down. “Done.”

Peggy gives her a smile. She’s trying a new strategy; be nice to Dottie. Perhaps it will help her break her training and really become a help. And if not, she can switch like a light to her businesslike self. It’s worth a go. And Dottie is a wild card. For all Peggy knows, it might actually be successful.

“Can you please help me carry these upstairs?” she asks.

Dottie gives her a funny look. Maybe she’s laying it on a little thick. “Come on. Help out.”

Dottie raises her eyebrows but complies, gathering her papers into a stack and following Peggy, who has the rest of the papers and pencils, upstairs.

In the middle of Peggy’s room, on her bed, is a flat piece of cardboard, a box that’s been taken apart and flattened. Peggy dumps the papers down on top of it and starts organizing them. She puts the sheet with ‘Whitney Frost’ in the center, cuts it smaller so there’s no excess paper, and tapes it down.

Dottie places her sheets next to Peggy’s. Peggy takes them and starts putting them in a circle around ‘Whitney Frost.’ Directly under the sheet with her name, she puts ‘Arena Club Pin.’ Then she pulls out a strand of red yarn and places it between ‘Whitney Frost’ and ‘Arena Club Pin.’ With some of the excess paper she cut off ‘Whitney Frost,’ she writes “Wants” and tapes it to the string.

“Do you see what I’m doing?” Peggy asks. Dottie understood from the moment she saw the cardboard and string and tries not to be offended. “Yes.”

She jumps in to help Peggy out, cutting excess paper off and taking ‘Arena Club’ and adding the word ‘Membership’ and connecting it with blue yarn to ‘Arena Club Pin.’ She labels the connector as “Leads To.” Peggy then connects a string from ‘Whitney Frost’ to ‘Arena Club Membership’ as ‘Wants.’

‘Whitney Frost’ connects as ‘Wants’ to ‘Zero Matter’ and ‘Rifts.’ ‘Dimensions’ connects as ‘Leads To’ to ‘Rifts.’ ‘Zero Matter’ connects as ‘Wants’ to ‘Rifts,’ just as ‘Whitney Frost’ does. Slowly, the puzzle starts coming together and a plan starts to emerge.

“Whitney Frost wanted the pin-” Peggy starts.

“So she could get into the Arena Club-”

“And get that influence-”

“And all those witches-”

“To get her the power-”

“To open a Rift-”

“To let the Zero Matter in-”

“And destroy the world.”

They look at each other, flushed with a sudden victory, disregarding, for a single moment, everything that’s passed between them. For a single half-second, they’re both crazy-smart girls working together who have just achieved a critical goal.

But, of course, the moment was just that – a moment. Peggy blinks and looks away at the same time Dottie’s face grows guarded. “How did you find out all about the Rifting in witches?” Peggy asks. “If you’ve never Rifted yourself.”

“I know a girl who did. I know several.”

“How so?”

“In the Red Room, where I was trained, they staged battles between girls. Sparring, they called it. No way out; you’d have to fight if they selected you. Like the gladiators of Rome. The girls would use their abilities on each other until one used too much and Rifted herself. Sometimes, the other girl would then try to kill her. Sometimes immediately, and sometimes she’d wait. It depended on what the instructors told you to do. But the thing is, it’s very hard to kill a Rifted. You can’t shoot them, can’t just snap their neck. They can heal from that, heal from practically anything. You have to literally rip them apart.”

Peggy is horrified. “Oh, my god.” It’s absolutely sickening. Dottie’s words echo – “teach them to murder young, and they never learn right from wrong.” It’s no wonder she is like this. It’s no wonder she’s a killer, no wonder she’s so strong.

“Dottie, that’s-“

“Sick? Twisted?” Dottie shrugs a shoulder. “Effective?”

“Horrible. Abusive. Repulsive. Wrong.”

“Oh, someone’s a thesaurus.” Dottie rolls her eyes, sits back and takes on a removed stance, but Peggy thinks she sees a tiny bit of something in the set of her folded arms; the memories, or something, is affecting her.

“I’m sorry, Dottie.”

Dottie rolls her eyes again and parrots back the “sorry,” laughing at its emptiness, its futility. Then, unexpectedly, she drops her eyes to the ground and gives a sort of sad half-smile. “Ida.”

“What?”

“My birth name is Ida Emke. The name my parents gave me. I took on Dorothy Underwood for this mission. Dorothy from Dorothy Gale and Underwood from Percy Jackson.” She shrugs. “I liked Grover’s last name.”

“So that’s why you had that Wizard of Oz book!” Peggy’s ashamed she hadn’t made the connection. “Well, Ida is a pretty name, too.”

Dottie clenches her teeth, her moment of almost-trust gone. “I’m not Ida. I’m Dorothy. Dottie. Ida is the Red Room girl, Leviathan’s puppet. I’ve decided now that I’m done being that. I’m not her anymore.”

“So I take it you want me to call you Dottie, then?”

“It’s my name. It’s my real real name, despite it not being my birth name. It’s me, and it’s more me than any other name, because I chose it myself.”

“So are you really on my side, then?” Peggy, stupidly, hopes.

“No,” Dottie scoffs, disgusted. “I still might kill you, if I can. But if I kill you, it’ll be to make sure you don’t get more powerful than me. It won’t be for Leviathan.”

“So you still might kill me?”

“I don’t know, Peggy. It seems like you can take care of yourself, so we’ll see if I’m even able to,” she grins, back to her usual attitude and silky, wicked voice.

Peggy figures it’s as good as she can hope for. Trusting Dottie will never not be off the table. “Yes,” she airily replies, “we’ll see.”

Then, as an experiment, she pulls on the wind again and pushes Dottie’s curls in front of her face.

Dottie whirls towards her, suddenly on high-alert. Her split-second alarm changes to an evil grin and she pushes her hands towards Peggy, sending Peggy skidding across her floor on her butt all the way to the wall. “Oh!” she exclaims in surprise, and Dottie laughs at how British and proper it sounds.

Peggy stands. “Enough of that.” Then a thought crosses her mind. Dottie had been, for the tiniest fraction of time, almost scared. Not scared-scared, but in fight-or-flight.

“Dottie, can you please be honest with me one more time?”

Dottie shrugs one shoulder forward and then the other, smiling wryly.

“Did they… Did the Red Room ever use magic on you? Painfully?”


	38. Chapter 38

United States, Present-Day

Dottie starts to laugh. She laughs and laughs and laughs as if it’s the funniest joke in her life, doubling over and falling from a sitting position to lying down on Peggy’s hardwood floor. Just when Peggy thinks she’s about to stop, she bursts into another cackle of mirth. “All the time, Peggy. All the damn time. And not just magic. Fennhoff gets in your head, makes you do things. I took a blowtorch to my left arm, once.”

Peggy waits for her to say she’s joking. Waits for her to continue to laugh. But it doesn’t happen.

“Yes, and it blistered the flesh all up and down. Seared it, really. Cooked like a hamburger.” She enjoys Peggy’s expression of shock, but deep, deep inside, the story still cuts.

She pushes the memory away, again. “But guess what? Now, I can heal almost instantly. And it trained me to keep my mind closed, guarded. Because anything else means pain, means burning, means someone else controls you. And speaking of pain, I feel that a hell of a lot less, believe me!”

She clasps her hands together in her lap and smiles her sharp grin. “So, Peggy, don’t get any ideas on how to make me good, how to win me over. I never Rifted because I forced someone else to, and then I killed her without any qualms. I’ve pulled out my own teeth, my own nails, my own hair. I’ve burned my own flesh with a blowtorch. I will not obey anyone, and the second Whitney is gone, I’m going to vanish. I am currently your ally, but I will never be your friend. Do we understand each other?”

Peggy nods, severely shaken. “Yes.”

Dottie looks pleased. “Good. Now, I think we should attempt our little takedown of Ms. Frost shortly, hm?”

But just then, there’s a knock on the door downstairs. Crossing to her window, Peggy sees that her mother and father are home, with Charlie.

“Well,” Dottie sighs. “Should we pretend to still be dating, then?”

Peggy had forgotten she never told her mom she’d broken up with Dottie. She grits her teeth. “Just get out of here. Make sure she doesn’t notice you.”

“With pleasure.”

The girls leave Peggy’s room. Dottie crosses the hallway and unlocks and opens the opposite window that leads down into the backyard. Though it would be easy for her to use magic, she instead climbs out and dangles down so her hands grip the windowsill. Before Peggy can react, she falls to the ground, not even grasping onto the wind, as she did before, to slow her fall. Peggy gasps but Dottie lands perfectly from the second story, flashing a grin up to Peggy. Then she sprints across the lawn, scales the fence separating Peggy’s yard from her neighbor’s, and disappears over the edge into their property.


	39. Chapter 39

**United States, Present-Day**

Peggy looks after Dottie for a moment and then turns back to her computer. Howard’s messaged her over Skype.

“peggy u cant fool me. ur up 2 something big.”

“Whatever gave you that idea?”

“simple enough. u ignored my texts for a month straight. last time you did that you hijacked a car with me and started dating steve and. ok bringing him up was a dick move.”

Peggy rests her head on her hand for a moment. Why this.

“come on, pegs,” Howard writes. “we were friends. we are friends. youve got to help me out on this one. pls tell me”

Peggy is tempted, really tempted, for a moment. But pulling Howard into this would put him in danger, and despite his flaws, he is a good man. And he believes in her, even when it seems that nobody else does.

“I KNEW IT”

“What?”

“if it was a small thing you would have told me so now im sure its big”

“were*”

“whatever. im coming to help you.”

“I can’t let you.”

“u idiot. honestly im just being polite here. its too late for you to say no”

“Howard, NO! NO, NO, NO!”

“u really cant stop me. ive got the money ive got the time and i want to help u.”

“Howard, it’s dangerous!”

“peggy when i said its too late i meant it im literally already here”

“WHAT THE HELL?”

“would you mind picking me up at the airport? terminal a, baggage claim 13. see you in a few ;)”

An image pops in. It’s a selfie of him at baggage claim 13, grinning widely. Then, he signs off.

“No!” Peggy shouts. She slams her hand down on her desk and exhales harshly. She hits her hand into the desk again and then violently throws her forehead onto her box of sticky notes. She straightens, then, calming herself. She’s angry as hell, but there’s nothing she can do. And is she maybe slightly relieved? Perhaps. For better or worse, I’ve got some help now.

She heads to her bathroom, repainting her nails the matte red she prefers. Howard’s already here. Which means it’s likely she’ll have to tell her mom. Oh, lord!

She unplugs her phone from the wall and fires a message to Dottie.

“Picking up a friend. Looks like we’ve found another ally.”

The response is immediate. “Ooooh, aren’t you popular? ;)”

Peggy groans and calls an Uber to take her to the airport, scribbling a quick lie to her mom and leaving it on her bed.


	40. Chapter 40

**United States, Present-Day**

She finds him where he said he’d be; he’s surrounded by three massive suitcases and watching something on his iPad, sitting on the metal rim of the baggage claim, exactly where you’re not supposed to sit. He looks up and smiles rakishly, baseball cap tilted crosswise on his head, when he sees her, instantly dropping his iPad and going over to her. Peggy shakes her head, but she’s glad to see him, wrapping him in a warm hug. “It’s good to see you.”

Howard smiles, a rare, un-faked moment. “It’s good to see you too, Pegs.” He wraps his arms around her back, holding her close. Then he lets go. It’s a purely platonic gesture; each consider the other their younger sibling-slash-sidekick. “Let’s get down to business.”

There’s another person behind him, Peggy notices. Another high-school boy. “Oh! I brought a friend.” Howard turns, remembering. “Edwin Jarvis. He’ll help us in any way he can.”

“Pleasure,” Peggy says, shaking his hand.

He smiles at her. “Call me Jarvis.”

Peggy doesn’t smile back; she’s worried. “Are you staying here long?” she asks him. It’s a rude question and she knows it, but she’s past being polite right now.

“As long as I’m here,” Howard replies with a smile. “Come on. Let’s get going.”

They leave the airport, heading to the Riverside Marriott, where Howard has booked two rooms with his parents’ hard-earned money. “I’ll be at your place at ten tomorrow,” he promises Peggy. “And then we’ll kick ass ass-kicking whoever’s ass we need to kick.”

“True wisdom,” Jarvis observes dryly. Peggy finds herself liking him immensely.

“You two get yourselves situated. I will see you tomorrow, and I’ll brief you on everything.”

“Very professional,” remarks Jarvis. Peggy turns quickly, expecting sarcasm, but he looks genuinely approving. She cracks a smile and leaves.


	41. Chapter 41

**United States, Present-Day**

On the drive back, Peggy can’t focus as well as she usually can on her driving. She wonders how she’s going to explain anything. Her life, she realises, has fast become a magic mess, more like a Hogwarts experience than what she thought American High School would be.

Yet somehow it feels right. It feels right that she has this magic, has this ability to cloak, to detect, to track. Her abilities hover at the back of her mind like a phantom limb. She could take over a country, but she’s not evil like Dottie. And after she stops Dottie, she’ll go back to being a regular girl. Right?

In the back of her mind, she wonders if she can still be a regular girl.

Her eyes water and she doesn’t even know why.

 

*   *   *

 

“So how are we gonna do it?” Peggy asks.

“Well, since killing her is pretty much out of the question, I say we shove her back in the Rift. Back into the Zero Matter dimension. Then that’ll get rid of both her and the excess Zero Matter that’s not even supposed to be here in the first place.”

“But how?”

“That is what I’m stuck on.” Dottie sighs, and for a moment, she looks once-again unguarded. “Peggy, we are talking volcanic eruptions levels of power. One witch cannot create it.”

She pauses. “Unless…”

“Unless what?”

“Oh, Peggy! You’re much to much of a good girl to even consider it.”

“Unless what, Dottie?”

Dottie shrugs. “Be a leech. Be an energy leech. Gather a whole bunch of people, get them to touch you somehow, and suck their life energy out. Build it in you and then unleash it at once and hope you don’t blow yourself up in the process.”

“What?”

“It wouldn’t kill them.” Dottie’s amused. “You’d just be taking their energy, what keeps humans animated and moving.”

“Would they recover?”

“It depends on how much you take. If you take all their energy to the point where they don’t have enough to keep their heart beating, then no.”

Peggy internally shudders. “And how do I know when to stop?”

Dottie shrugs again. “That’s the hard part. Because the more you take-”

“The more you want to.”

“Now you’re catching on!”

“So how do I prevent myself from taking too much?”

“I presume you are going to use this little trick, then?”

“Yes. How many people will I need?”

“Well, you use almost all the energy you have. I think people underestimate the sheer amount of vitality there is in a single human form. With your life force, if you used all of it, killing yourself in the process, you might get an eighth of the way to a Rift! I assume, though, that you want to come out of this alive.”

“That would be preferable, yes. And wouldn’t anyone?”

“I wouldn’t care either way, really.”

Peggy gives Dottie a curious look, trying to see if she’s joking. It doesn’t seem like she is. Peggy turns away. “How many people will I need? And how do I stop myself from… from killing them?”

“Well, I think you’ll have to find your own way on that. This is magic that even I haven’t touched.”

It gives Peggy shivers, so she doesn’t think about it. “How many people will I need?” she asks again.

Dottie thinks for a moment. “So, if you bleed them almost dry-”

“Don’t use metaphors like that!”

“It’s no different, really, than what you’re doing. If you bleed them almost dry,” she speaks of them as if they’re bugs, not humans, “then maybe you’d use ten, twenty? I’ve never done this, you see.”

“Would there be a way to… use…” she hates the word; it makes them seem like items, rather than people, “fewer?”

Dottie sits back on her heels and thinks. “There might be. Remember when I, when first explaining all of this to you, used water as a metaphor?”

“Yes.”

“Well, what can you do to make water more powerful?”

Peggy thinks of a fire-hose. “Funnel it through something thin and use a lot of pressure.”

“Right! So all their life energy is going through you. If you can somehow thin that into a precise bolt of energy, like a blade, and fire it where you want the Rift to open, it’s possible it could slit open the dimensional wall more easily. Like a scalpel slicing apart skin. It would be easier than trying to just blast the wall apart, and cleaner, too.”

Peggy grimaces. “And?”

“Welll, how else can you make water more powerful?”

“Don’t you just love to dangle information above my head?”

“Like a black widow spider, Peg.”

Peggy doesn’t give Dottie the benefit of so much as a changed facial expression, remaining impassive. “You can also build a dam.”

Dottie’s face doesn’t change either (oh she loves to play games) but Peggy figures that if she didn’t scoff, she’s probably on the right track.

“So you’re saying that-”

“Oh, I’m not saying anything.”

“So you’re implying that if I hold that energy in me for a long time and unleash it all at once, like water bursting from a dam, which is ten times more powerful than just a river flowing, and aim it like a tiny little precise beam of good-little-Rift-breaking-energy, then-”

“Then it might be possible. You understand that this is setting a precedent, Peggy. This is,” she drops her voice to something close to a tone one would use with a friend, “is new territory, even for me.”

“I wonder why nobody else has thought of it?”

“I think you vastly overestimate the intelligence of the majority of Earth’s adult human population, darling. If you already have a way that works, why search through trial and tribulation for a new one? And it’s my personal theory that if you have magic at your disposal, you’re less inventive, less eager to search for practical ways to complete tasks. You wouldn’t have as much of a seeking spirit. Because why would you? You snap your fingers and whatever you want… it’s there.”

Dottie’s voice is staying mostly neutral, apart from the disgusting thievery of Peggy’s term of endearment; it’s familiar but not snide. Peggy treads carefully. “I disagree, actually,” she says. “I mean, I see your point. But, Dottie, wouldn’t having magic mean you have more opportunities to discover, to invent? Wouldn’t it push you farther?”

Dottie’s looking thoughtful. Then she disguises it with her wicked smile. “You can tell you’re new to this, Peggy. Someone who has been powerful their whole life would not see it the way you do.”

Peggy shrugs. “I chose to take that as a compliment.”

“Very well, then. So have you decided to dark magic your way to a Rift?”

“Yes.”

“And I will..?”

“You know what to do.”

“Theoretically, yes. I just have to disguise myself, somehow gain the trust of the most dangerous person in America and possibly the world without being discovered, somehow get her to the Rift you’ve opened, and shove her back inside it, because she’s almost impossible to murder, and somehow not get sucked into the Rift myself.”

“Yes. Seems easy enough.”

Dottie smirks. “Solid plan.”

“And you’re sure we can’t just shoot her?”

“Didn’t tell you? You can’t fatally shoot a Rifted witch. You can’t snap their neck. You have to pull their limbs apart, drain the Zero Matter out of them, burn their body away.”

“Like a vampire.”

“Wonder where that myth came from, hm?”

“From witches?”

“We do, admittedly, have a flair for the dramatic. The drinking blood bit and aversion to garlic? No. THat seems easy enough to make up. But the dark cloaks and bad attitudes? Well, I think it’s likely. Besides, many magic folktales with tidbits of accuracy originated in Eastern Europe. Albania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania. Transylvania. The Vajda family, for instance, is full of powerful witches. They were rulers of Transylvania, once. I was sent to assassinate one of them, actually. Just a little girl. Easy mission. Or it should’ve been.”

Peggy doesn’t want to know.

“And you’re sure we can’t just dismember Whitney? And bypass this whole Rift-creating altogether?”

“Well, think about it.” Dottie speaks slowly, patronizingly. “We hold her down, not letting her hands touch us-”

“Seems easy enough!”

“And then we hack her limbs apart? Peggy, you?”

“How about you, then? You’re comfortable with everything! You do the face-disguise-thing, get close to her, and tackle her. Then we help, and we chain her up, and we pull her back to somewhere, and then we kill her.”

“Peggy, she’d escape in two-seconds-flat. None of us can hold her down. Open the Rift, and she’ll be led there. She’ll want more Zero Matter. She’ll feel the Rift open. She’ll go on her own, and we do what we have to do when she’s there.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

“Won’t she be suspicious?”

“Whitney? Well, I’m sure she would be, if she weren’t being controlled by shit from another dimension.”

“So back to the Rift plan?” Peggy sighs.

“Yes. You open it. Get all the people you need. Chain them to you, if you have to.”

Peggy shakes her head. “I think I can convince them to come without being that… extreme.”

“Suit yourself. Open the Rift however you need to, and I’ll nudge Whitney in the right direction, using whatever means necessary.”

“Dottie. You will not hurt anyone on your way to get to her.”

Dottie scowls. “I was looking forward to having a little fun.”

“Dottie, stop.”

Dottie makes a growling noise and grasps onto her wrist, holding where the band of Zero Matter encircled it. “Nobody’s going to chain me again. I’ll kill if I have to.”

“You won’t have to kill anyone to get Whitney to the Rift!”

Dottie heaves a sigh of disappointment, and Peggy’s stuck by how volatile she can be. “I think you’re right,” Dottie says. “She’s desperate to open a Rift on her own. She’ll certainly come to this one. But in case she doesn’t sense it, I’ll lead her there. And if she comes on her own, then I’ll join up with you and help you make the Rift.”

Peggy’s well-aware Dottie would push her into the Rift if she got the chance, and Peggy’s determined not to give her the opportunity.

If I pushed Dottie in, she’d be gone forever.

But Peggy knows she won’t be able to do it.

“What is in the Rift, Dottie?”

“For Whitney? Death.” She closes off her face and stands. “We should get started.”

“Wait,” Peggy says. “What was her name?” she asks, quickly, seeing Dottie’s curious face and not wanting it to turn guarded. “The girl you fought. The one you Rifted.”

“The girl I killed, you mean? Anya.”

_Anya._

Peggy doesn’t know what to do with the name, but she remembers it.

“Alright. I guess we should get started, then?”

Dottie shrugs. “Guess so.”


	42. Chapter 42

**United States, Present-Day**

Dottie holds her hands in two fists and closes her eyes, adjusting her stance into neutral body position. Like a rippling effect, her facial features rearrange. Her nose flattens and widens, her cheekbones shift down and jut out lower, and her eyebrows get bushier. Her chin squares off and her jaw takes on an angry set.

Peggy watches in shock. The change continues, flowing down to her neck, which gets stockier. Her breasts shrink to almost nothing and her waist expands. Her arms fall against her sides differently and are thicker and less elegant, as if they’ve been stuffed, and her nails become rough, unpainted, and dirty.

She - he - collapses backwards onto the ground, exhausted. Peggy’s frozen still, unnerved beyond comprehension.

Dottie opens her - his? eyes, which are now brown, and looks up at Peggy. “Will this do?”she - he? she? asks, with a touch of pride.

Even Dottie’s voice has changed. It’s darker, browner, more husky. Clearly a male voice.

“I - what do I -- what?”

Dottie turns onto her - his? side and stands. “Well, time to take down Whitney.”

“How did you do that?”

“Magic trick.”

“So you’re a boy now?”

“Obviously not. How you physically look has no correlation to your gender. ‘Every human being worth their salt,’ as you say, knows that. I’m the same as I was. I just look and sound different.”

Peggy nods. “Alright.”

Dottie pats Peggy on the shoulder and then wobbles off to the side. She’s energized, full of power. “Gotta work out the kinks in this thing for a bit.”

Peggy thinks of what innuendos Angie would make at that statement, and her mouth twitches toward a smile. “You do that.”

Dottie gives Peggy a slashface and then almost falls over again. “Are you alright?” Peggy asks, more out of habit than because she cares.

“Of course. This is just… a lot. A lot of magic to hold at once. And I also have to hold my magic in, so nobody can sense it.” She gets to her feet. “God, I feel like I can do anything!”

“Be careful.”

“I know!” Dottie snaps. She marches out the door and places her hand on the wall next to her. Calm down. Control. Control.

“You’re sure you can find Whitney?” Peggy asks.

“I sensed her when she came to the school. I can sense powerful witches. It’s a skill that I was trained to develop. That’s how the Red Room discovered you; the power of a witch, when she’s not making the conscious effort to hide it, sends off something like a wireless signal, regardless of whether or not she’s actually using her power. If you’ve already had an interaction with a witch you’re trying to track, you can recognize their signal, and you can catch it, even from great distances. Whitney’s immensely strong, because she’s a Rifted. So, to answer your question, yes, I can.”

“So the Red Room could still find you? Find me again?”

“Of course not,” Dottie scoffs. “I’ve been hiding both our energy signals. I found a new method; I casted a ward. I’m hidden from them, now.”

“Can every witch do that?”

“No. I’m one of the most powerful in the Red Room, remember?”

“Even more so than Whitney?”

Dottie smiles, saccharine sweet. “Whitney’s Rifted. She couldn’t care less about subtlety.”

“Why doesn’t the Red Room go after her, then?”

“I think they’ve got their hands full with all the young Rifted witches they’re dealing with. It’s a good question, though. Maybe everyone they sent after her died, so they stopped trying.”

She heads for the door without another word.

Then she’s gone, out Peggy’s room and down the stairs. Peggy crosses to her landing and watches Dottie until she turns the corner and can’t be seen. In a few moments, the front door opens and closes.

Peggy crosses to her bedroom’s window and watches as Dottie leaves the front door, pulls out her phone, and, presumably, calls a taxi or Uber to take her to wherever Whitney is. She waits at the window for long moments until a red-and-black car comes to pick her up. Dottie casts a glance back up to Peggy and gives a sharp-smiled wave. Then she climbs into the backseat. In a few moments, the car pulls away.


	43. Chapter 43

**United States, Present-Day**

It takes a long time to find the proper place to tear open dimensions, which Peggy figures she should have anticipated. Finally, she settles on a park, two hours away and on the outskirts of the city’s metropolitan area, right where New York City’s fades past what might be called suburbs into the rural areas. Peggy is the one who goes out there first, and the only living things she sees are a couple of rabbits. There’s an abandoned sandy baseball diamond with weeds growing over the bases and huge fields of untrimmed grass stretching into the distance; it’s perfect.

So, later that day, the rest of them come; Peggy, Howard, Jarvis, and -- Peggy decided they needed one more responsible figure to control Howard -- Jason Wilkes, the grade’s certified genius, who had immediately decided to go as soon as Peggy had mentioned the words “Possible other dimension.” Since she had not interacted with him since the fateful party where she had first met Dottie, she was surprised at his readiness.

“Proof of other dimensions? Do you know how much this would destroy in the scientific community?” he had asked eagerly, his eyes dark alight. “This has -- this is -- this has just fascinated me since I was tiny. Yes, I’ll come!”

“So you believe me?” she had asked.

“I was staying after school one day when I’m pretty sure I saw someone go flying -- floating -- over a school fence. I couldn’t see that and not know something was weird here.”

“Yup, that was Dottie, all right.”

Peggy blinks herself back to the present and the thick weeds around her ankles, cursing their need to be far from civilisation. She lines the group up along the side of the baseball diamond, along the chain-link fence that edges it, to assign each person a task.

“Jarvis, I need you to stay right here, no matter what happens. If any of us get hurt, I need you to be the one to call the ambulance, the police, anyone.”

“Got it.”

“Howard, I’ll be draining the energy right out of your body.”

He blinks. “You can do that?”

“Yes.”

“Dude, that’s awesome!”

“It’s widely considered -- well, I consider it, anyway, to be dark magic. Howard, to put it frankly, it’s very dangerous.”

“Peggy. You literally just used the words ‘dark magic.’ I am so fucking in for this.”

Jarvis looks like he’s just tasted a vaguely sour fruit. “Howard, maybe it’s really not the best idea to agree so readily.”

Howard looks utterly nonplussed. “Why not?”

“She said dark magic. Isn’t it better to be wary?”

“Psh. When do we start?”

Peggy takes up a neutral stance, relaxing her muscles like Dottie taught her. Then she places her left foot in front of her right one, halfway into yoga’s Warrior Pose. “Hold onto me.”

Howard grasps her firmly around the waist. “Gotcha.”

Peggy raises her hands. Then she hears Jason make a surprised noise.

“What the hell,” comes a voice from behind them.

The voice is a not-unfamiliar. It’s Jack Thompson. He approaches them and takes them in, looking totally flabbergasted. “Peggy, what are you doing all the way out here?”

Peggy immediately steps away from Howard. “Jack. Please, get out of here.”

Jack shakes his head as if the very idea is ridiculous. “I’m here to practice baseball, since it’s the only place for miles where no little kids will get in the way of your swings, so I’m not going anywhere. But what the FUCK are you guys doing?!”

Peggy sighs. “Just go. It’s dangerous.”

“Who are those guys?”

“I’m Howard Stark!”

“Edwin Jarvis.”

“You name is Edwin!?”

“Call me Jarvis.”

“That’s not any better, though, is it?”

Peggy clenches her fists. They’re running out of time. “Jack, stop being a dick. if you really want to do this, grab onto Howard. Jason, grab onto him, because I want you to survive this most, because you’d write a badass scientific book with our names in it. You’re our anchor.”

“What the hell is this?” Jack’s still incredulous.

“Don’t have time. Grab onto Howard or get the fuck out of here!”

Jack clearly has no clue what’s going on. Howard grasps onto Peggy again. “I promise I’m not thinking any unsavory thoughts about you,” he says. Then he smiles. “Oh! There’s one.”

Peggy kicks him in the shins. Jack looks even more weirded-out. But maybe he can sense the urgency, because he -- reluctantly -- latches onto Howard.

Jason grabs onto Jack and digs his heels into the dirt. “Peggy, start!”

Peggy closes her eyes and listens to the rhythms of her body, of her blood pumping in circles through her head and down to her heart and out to her limbs. There’s so much energy there, so much life, so much magic. And she has to push it one step farther.

She holds her hands out in front of her, raises them to shoulder height and lets that energy shoot out of her, into the sky.

“Open sesame,” she whispers. She focuses the beam into something like a laser, trying to needle open a crack. Nothing happens. It zings up towards the sky and then fades into nothingness about sixteen feet away. It needs to be stronger. It needs more energy.

She slowly reaches toward the warmth of Howard’s hands around her, setting her awareness there. Then she starts to pull on it.

Howard weakens, stiffens, and tightens his grip. “Keep going! I’m okay!”

Peggy grits her teeth and pulls more on his energy, reaching for Jack’s behind him and Jason’s behind his. She pulls her energy towards her, pulling it into her, wrapping it into her cells, into her blood, into her veins. She drains them like a leech, pulling their energy into her.

It builds in her but she keeps it pressed to her. A dam. Dam up the energy. She remembers what Dottie said. Release it later. Slice the dimension open. Power, precision.

Dottie, where are you? she thinks in agony. The energy, soaked from Jason and Jack and Howard thrums through her, pulsing next to her heart, and she’s aware of every sensation against her skin. The faint, usually imperceptible movement of the molecules of the wind against the tiny hairs on her arms. Her feet on the ground, her center of balance, the rustling of the grass, the creatures in the dirt under her feet. She feels alive in a way she never has as she pulls on more energy, more of their power. She realises that she’s getting drunk on it, intoxicated, and that the power she’s using is pushing her close to the edge.

Howard clenches his arms tighter. “Peggy,” he whispers, “how much more do you need?”

Peggy loses her train of thought, barely hearing him. She reaches for more power, letting it soak through her. She’s a goddess. She could walk on fire. She takes more, reaching behind Howard for Jack’s energy, then Jason’s.

Howard is pale, Jack is breathing hard, and Jason’s legs are shaking.

Jarvis steps closer. He doesn’t know exactly what he’s doing, but he takes hold of Jason’s shoulders, attaching himself to the chain.

Instantly, energy starts to drain out of him, through his hands, into Jason’s back and down his spine, into Jack’s waist, up his arms and through Howard, and coming to rest in Peggy. He freezes, tries to pull his hands away, but the chain of energy binds him tight.

Peggy pulls on the extra energy Jarvis lends her, feeling a surge like a tidal wave, like a typhoon. She’s made of titanium now, unbreakable. The power saturating her, filling her. And it’s almost escaping.

Finally, she lets it. She shoves her arms forward and grits her teeth, half-closing her eyes. She’s walking above the clouds, now, invincible, barely aware anything around her.

A beam of pure red light arrows from her hands. Howard, Jack, and Jason tumble behind her to the ground.

The light shoots forward, up into the air. Then it distorts, spreading like a ripple.

Wind around them picks up. Peggy’s hair starts to rise off her shoulders. Her shirt lifts up against her stomach. Her feet rise off the ground.

Jack, Jason, Howard, and Jarvis start to float, reaching for each other and Peggy. Howard grabs her around the waist. Jack grabs him. Jason grabs Jack. Jarvis clutches onto the edge of the chain-link fence.

The light starts to spread. It forks, one offshoot reaching upward and bending sharply. The other shoots downward and forks again. Two offshoots on the sides shoot left and right. A crack is forming, brilliantly white, in the sky.

Peggy floats upward further. Jason grabs onto Jarvis, everyone being tethered to the ground only by Jarvis’s hand on the chain-length fence. They rise toward the Rift.

Leaves off the nearest trees get sucked towards the crack, which is edging bigger by the second. Peggy is still brimming with power, but Jarvis’s hand is tired. It slowly starts to slip off the top of the fence. He clutches at it, grasping it firmer. But his hand is slick. It starts to slide off again.

That’s when Daniel soars past them towards the giant crack in the sky, screaming.


	44. Chapter 44

**United States, Present-Day**

Whitney’s eyes snap open wide.

“It’s here,” she whisper-hisses.

She places down her book and leaves the house, looking upward towards the sky. It’s pulling her closer. She’s near. She’ll get more Zero Matter. She’ll rise.

But she doesn’t know where exactly it is. It’s pulling her sideways, towards the walls between dimensions, and vaguely eastward. But it’s nowhere precise enough to tell exactly where she needs to go.

She moves to her car, every movement robotic. 

That’s when she sees the boy. He’s caucasian, perfectly average-looking. His hands are in his pockets.

“What are you looking at?” she asks, angrily. She hadn’t bothered to hide the crack in her face.

“I can show you where it is,” he says. “The Rift.”

Whitney’s by his side in an instant. He doesn’t flinch. “You know about the Rift?” she asks, her hands tearing at each other.

He nods. “My sister's coven created it. We’re trying to harness it.”

“Take me there.”

The boy nods. “It’s far. Get in the car.”

The Zero Matter is whispering to Whitney again. She lets it.

_ Follow him. Take us there. Take us to the power _ , it - she - thinks.

She gets into her car, sitting shotgun. The boy takes the wheel. He tears off down the road, heading towards the edge of the city. Whitney sits still, vibrating, excited, alone.


	45. Chapter 45

**United States, Present-Day**

“Daniel!” Peggy shouts, in panic. The Rift shrinks and she forces more energy into it. Though she’s flagging, her mind is still telling her she’s invincible.

Daniel throws his arm out as the Rift sucks him in. He reaches, misses, and finally catches onto Peggy’s sleeve. He grasps onto her wrist frantically, pulling closer.

Jarvis’s hand is still slipping. “PEGGY!” he shrieks. The chain of five people, ten feet off the ground and being pulled ever closer, jerks closer to the Rift.

“JARVIS, HOLD ON!” Peggy shouts back to him. The wind is picking up. Her clothes flap all around her. Jack starts screaming.

Jarvis closes his eyes and opens them, trying to shut out everything. But he’s floating ten feet off the ground while a growing-ever-larger crack in the sky is sucking everything into it, like it’s some sort of black hole, and his hand slips still further off the edge of the chain-length fence.

A branch of a tree breaks off and goes spiraling into the Rift. Jack screams louder. “SHUT UP!” Peggy yells, trying to focus. She aims still more magic into the Rift. “DO YOU THINK IT’S BIG ENOUGH?” she shouts, over the whirling wind.

“IT’S FUCKING GIGANTIC!” Howard yells. Jason holds onto him tighter as another gust buckles them both. “STOP FEEDING IT! WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIEEEEEEEEEEEE-”

Another branch whips by his face, scraping the edge of his nose, and he screeches. “STOP THIS CRAZY THING!”

Peggy ignores them, whirling with her power. “JUST A LITTLE MORE!”

“NO!” chorus Jarvis, Jason, Jack, and Howard at once.

“PEGGY! STOP!”

Something smacks Peggy on the cheek. The beam from her hands sputters and dies. 

Another voice starts to shout. “THE RIFT IS SELF-SUSTAINING NOW! WE HAVE TO PUSH HER IN!”

It’s Dottie, back to her normal appearance. She’s holding herself above ground, levitating, and the wind is blowing her hair wildly around her face. She grasps Peggy by the arms. “HELP ME!”

Peggy slowly comes out of her stupor. She blinks, takes in Dottie’s panicked face and Daniel, clinging to her arm for dear life as he blows like clothes on a clothesline in the wind. Then she stiffens. The Rift is pulling her in, a vortex growing stronger by the minute. Below her dangling feet, Whitney is shuffling like an incredulous zombie towards the crack in the sky, the fabric of her dress blowing frantically in the wind, tattering and ripping around her ankles.

_ My friends are flying _ , Peggy thinks stupidly.  _ My friends are flying ten feet off the ground. _ She turns her head, her hair whipping around her, Dottie’s sharp fingernails digging deep into her forearm. She sees Daniel next to her, Howard, his eyes closed in terror, Jack behind him, yelling bloody murder, and Jason, the only one with a semblance of dignity, looking like this is the worst decision he’s ever made in his life. And then there’s Jarvis, turned away from her, clinging desperately to the top of the chain-link fence as his legs kick wildly in the air, scrambling for purchase.

As Peggy watches, euphoria still swirling in her mind, Dottie takes her chance and starts to shove her into the Rift. Peggy, dazed, is sucked closer and closer to the ominous crack, her hair and clothes whipping like she’s in a hurricane. She’s almost to the verge when Jarvis’s fingers finally slip off the top of the chain-link fence.

Every person on the chain hurtles toward the Rift, everyone but Dottie screaming. Jarvis feels something -- an arm? -- slap against his back. Then he hits the Rift and thinks nothing more. They seep like liquid through it, falling through and down, down, down.

 

Then the world goes shocking, blank white.


	46. Chapter 46

**The Riftworld, Time Unknown**

Dottie opens her eyes. She’s lying flat on her back, cold. It’s white everywhere she looks. She turns her eyes upward to where the sky would be. There’s only grey there. Clouds cover the sky, if a sky exists at all.

She gets to her feet, already starting to shiver. It’s getting colder by the second, and she’s frigid. She turns around in a circle. Something blows around her knees. It’s a dress. Bright red, like blood and fire, and tattered, and far too small. She knows this place.

She looks around. There, off to her left, is the rock pile. All around her are the blurred, vague edges of the pine trees in the forest; all grey, no green.

She looks at the ground, around her feet. She scans around in a circle and sees Whitney Frost, lying behind her in the snow.

She’s deep in the powder, sprawled spread-eagled, like a marionette missing its strings. Her dress is grey, unlike the purple it is outside the Rift. Dottie looks around and realizes that the only real color in the landscape is her dress; her blonde hair has been bleached paler, as if the yellow were snatched and de-saturated in it, and her skin looks as fragile and pale as the thin ice over clear blue water. It’s like the entire landscape is an old photograph, about to crumple into dust. And it’s achingly familiar.  _ From where? _

Whitney’s now-grey eyes flick open, searching the sky and then landing on Dottie’s face. There’s murder in her eyes, but no energy.  _ The Wicked Witch of the West _ , Dottie thinks, and brushes the idea away.

She reaches her hand down to Whitney. The black crack all across her face is gone.

Whitney stares up at Dottie, malice giving way to confusion, and takes her hand. Gloved hand meeting ungloved one, she pulls herself to her feet before snatching her hand away. “We’re in the Rift,” she says, looking around. “Where’s the Zero Matter?” Her eyes dart from side to side. “This is not -- WHERE IS IT?”

Dottie is unfazed. “What did you expect?”

“Blackness. Cold. Emptiness. It wanted me to come here, wanted me to be the gateway to let the Zero Matter into our world.” She blinks. “I’m so cold.”

“Is it… out of you?”

“The Zero Matter?” Whitney touches the side of her face, where the crack used to be. Then her face twists in rage. “GIVE IT BACK,” she shrieks at Dottie, throwing herself at the girl with all the power in her frame.

Dottie shifts to the side, watching as Whitney hurtles by her and lands face-first in the powder. She shivers, jealous of the woman’s gloves. Her dress is too tight across her, ripping at the seams along the torso. Wind blows into the cracks, chilling her deeper than her bones.

Whitney lies face down in the powder for a moment, shaking. Then she shoves herself to her feet and throws a hand out at Dottie, intending to shoot a spell in her direction.

Nothing happens. There’s a wave of energy in the air for a moment, but it dissipates immediately. Dottie, curious, tries to light her hand on fire. Nothing happens. There’s heat, but it’s wicked away immediately by the cold of the space. All magic dies on the air. She tries again, and there’s nothing -- no light, no heat. Her hands are skin and bone and muscle, and that’s it. For the first time, Dottie is rooted to the ground with the thought that  _ this _ is life for all those without witchery. She almost understands Whitney’s rage.

Whitney heaves herself forward, stretching out to Dottie in some sort of pathetic attempt to grasp onto her neck like she did when she tortured Dottie in her basement. Dottie grasps her by the wrist and jerks her closer, sticking her left foot behind Whitney’s left one and using her elbow to flip Whitney back down onto the ground.

Whitney pants. Her eyes flick wildly around, panicked, and she hurls herself to her feet once again. Dottie half-expects her bones to snap. “Give it back,” Whitney whimpers. Her voice grows to a shout. “FIX ME!”

Dottie turns and runs from her, legs pumping, trying to get the blood to her limbs, which are the coldest they’ve ever been. She looks around for a crack, for a way out of the dimension, but sees nothing. The clouds are blank. The snow is blanker.

Then she trips over something and sprawls forward, tucking and rolling and jerking herself into a defensive stance.

It’s Jarvis, passed-out and half-covered in snow. Dottie looks over her shoulder. There’s Jack. In the opposite direction are Jason, Peggy,  Daniel, and Howard. They’re all out cold.

She goes over to Peggy, who is closest, tapping her exposed, cold neck gently. Whitney, far-off now (space seems distorted here, Dottie realizes) is staggering around, clawing at her face and shouting something unintelligible.

Dottie can’t kill Peggy now; not when she could help her escape the Zero Matter’s dimension.

Dottie presses, hard, on Peggy’s chest. She coughs and sits upright, throwing her arm out to her side and scooting backwards into the snow. Then she starts to shiver.

“C-cold,” she whispers, her teeth chattering. Her face is gdark rey. Her entire outfit is. Dottie’s own color is nearly gone.

“I know it’s cold,” Dottie answers, her teeth starting to chatter. She remembers training outside in all months in shorts and a tank top. Looking at Peggy, so much softer than she is, she realizes that Peggy must be colder still.

“Your dress,” Peggy says, reaching out a trembling hand to touch it. “Color.”

She trembles again and falls backward into the snow. Dottie slaps her cheek. “Wake up,” she hisses. “Wake up, Peggy! We need you to get out of here!”

Peggy curls in on herself, getting into fetal position. “Lemme sleep,” she murmurs.

“You’ll get fucking hypothermia!”

Peggy isn’t listening. Dottie shakes hard, the cold endless, and scrapes herself together, pulling herself upright. Fennhoff’s words have not lost their power here.

“Color,” Peggy had said. Dottie’s dress was full of color.

She looks around. The rest of the landscape has no color. She looks at the sky. Clouds still cover it, grey and low. If there’s the single star up there, it’s covered.

Star. The red star.

And all at once, she knows for certain what she’d suspected. She knows what this place is. She’s been here in dreams. The rock pile, the blurred forest, the snowscape, the wolf, the single, glowing red star. The red star.

And Dottie knows, suddenly knows, that the way out is there. Why she went towards it, the very first time she had this dream, before she even properly knew what dimensions were.

The dreams. She’s had these dreams every time she touched the Zero Matter. When she killed Anya. When Whitney touched her. And now that she’s in the Rift, she’s in the dream, without being asleep.

The Red Star. It would be east, where the sun would rise. Dottie looks back at the rocks, just a smudge in the distance. She looks at Peggy. Then she kicks her harshly. “Wake up!”

Peggy groans. “Don’t sleep!” Dottie yells, as she runs toward the rocks to get her bearings. “You’ll die! Wake Daniel, Jason, wake everyone!”

She tears off to the rocks, where Whitney is standing. And then the whispers start in her head. 

“Don’t go over there,” her thoughts whisper. “Staying here is good. Sleep, like Peggy.”

Dottie isn’t fooled. She sprints to the rocks but stops when she sees Whitney’s face.

It’s ravenous. A hunger has taken root in her cheekbones and eyes, and her dress flaps around her like a harpy’s wings, like a witch’s cloak. She holds her hands at her sides and draws Zero Matter up from the ground. It willingly flows into her hands like black oil, like filthy sludge.

Dottie puts her hands up defensively, ready to be attacked. Whitney launches herself at Dottie, pushing off against the rocks.

Dottie throws herself into the ground. She can’t fire a spell. She can’t hide behind anything. She can only crouch in the snow and hope. She throws her arms up above her head, the age-old human defense, as utterly useless as it is innate.

But instantly, there’s something around her, protecting her. Warmth flows into her and there’s the gentle sensation of fur against her arms. Whitney’s Zero Matter soars through the air towards her and shatters on the white wolf’s back.

Dottie turns and stands, her hair blowing in the wind. The wolf stands with her, uncurling itself and facing off against Whitney. Wherever it touches her, warmth spreads throughout her body, zipping along her veins, through her heart, to everywhere in her. And Dottie feels her power returning, along with the energy and warmth.

The wolf growls and places itself defiantly in front of Dottie, its red eyes flashing. There’s something in the stance, in the way it acts. Dottie notices, for the first time, that there’s chafing around its left front paw, as if someone had rubbed the fur off. It looks at Whitney and growls, low in its throat.

“Anya?” she whispers. But the wolf makes no reply, flinging itself at Whitney, plunging towards her through the snow.

Whitney gets a hand on it, drawing it down the creature’s flank. The fur burns off it and it growls in anger, pain, and bites Whitney around the middle. Whitney shrieks and shoves her hand against its muzzle and it releases her, stepping backwards from her into the snow.

Dottie clenches her fist. “Go,” she tells the wolf. “I’ll fight her. There are others here that need your help.”

It turns to look at her, its eyes red as the Red Room’s name, and blinks. It’s not just Anya. It’s all the girls killed by other girls, all the Rifted witches. Because though Dottie pushed their names and faces away, they never left her.

The wolf bounds away over the snow towards where Peggy and her friends are lying. Dottie turns again to Whitney Frost. The cold won’t beat her now.

She fixes herself in a guard, fists by her face. Whitney pulls more Zero Matter from the ground. It looks like her skin is cracking, tiny fissures running up and down her arms and into the sleeves of her dress. The more she pulls from around her, the bigger they get.

_ It’s like fighting Anya. Force her to Rift herself. Can you Rift in a Rift? _

_ Guess I’ll find out.  _ Dottie grits her teeth.

She fakes a lunge towards Whitney. Whitney shoots Zero Matter at her. Dottie drops and rolls and takes Whitney’s feet out from under her, sending her to the ground. She scrabbles around her in the snow. She knows snow. She’s fought in snow.

She takes Whitney into a headlock, but Anya’s face and the face of the wolf flash before her eyes and she drops her, a scream building behind her lips.

The flashback breaks open on her and she falls backward, trying with all her strength to fight it.

That’s when Peggy fires a bolt of energy right between Whitney’s eyes.   
  


There’s perfect silence for a shimmering moment. The wind around them seems to stop. Whitney’s face opens in almost comical shock. Her eyes cross and her hands reach weakly up to her face. Then, and there’s no better word for it, she explodes.

The Zero Matter bursts through the cracks in her flesh, throwing itself out around her, drops of it shining everywhere in the air like the coins Peggy had thrown against Dottie’s head. Peggy ducks and twists to try and avoid it. Dottie rolls sideways, still heaving and retching from the memories.

And the wolf is everywhere at once, manipulating the dimension, nosing Dottie to her feet and shoving her towards Peggy, then curling over them both. The Zero Matter hits it and sears its fur off, crisping the skin below it, and it howls in agony, dropping in pain to the ground.

But it’s alive.

And Peggy and Dottie are, too.


	47. Chapter 47

**The Riftworld, Time Unknown**

They open their eyes slowly. The snowy landscape around them is unchanged, icy, still. A faint ringing sound seems to echo through the air.

Slowly, above them, the grey clouds start to part. The night sky becomes visible, and with it, larger and brighter and redder than the sun, is the exit. The Red Star. It’s a presence, not a far-away orb -- Dottie can see that it’s rimmed in black and white, a rippling effect. It’s a hole that light shines through, not a star, and best of all, it’s close. 

Its rays turn the show to shimmering salmon pink and white, reflecting up into everyone’s eyes. Everywhere it touches, color shows. Peggy’s sweater becomes blue, her lips red-pink. Dottie blinks, and her eyes become turquoise once again. The piercing cold of the snowscape lifts, becomes bearable, and far off in the snow, Howard, Jarvis, Jason, and Jack start to stir.

 

The wolf moans faintly and rolls over, cracking its eyes. Dottie’s at its side in a heartbeat, running her palm over the top of the wolf’s head, staring into its eyes. “Are you alright?”

It blinks and nods, pushing its nose into Dottie’s palm. Then it tries to get to its feet.

It yowls, a wrenching sound of agony, and falls over into the snow again. Dottie crouches over its again-prone form and digs her fingers into its fur. “Come on,” she whispers in Russian. “I am here. I will help you.” She bites her lip, knowing there’s something else she needs to say. “And… I’m sorry.”

The wolf blinks again and shifts. This time, it rises. It points its nose toward the star, toward the exit. Dottie looks at Peggy. “Let’s go.”

They walk. They walk a long time, until they’re there.

Time seems to distort and wobble as they walk, and for moments they are miles off, then only feet away, then miles off again. But finally, they all have arrived.


	48. Chapter 48

**The Red Star, Time Unknown**

“Before we go,” Peggy says to Dottie, her hands twisting around themselves against the skirt of her dress. Her hair is wet from lying in snow and it falls down past her shoulder in irregular, snakelike waves. Red light shines behind her, backlighting her like an angel with a halo from hell. She gives a tight, sad smile. “Please promise me you’ll let me help you, when we get out of here.”

“There is nothing you can do,” says Dottie, reaching out and cupping Peggy’s face with her pale, trembling hand. “If you treat a girl like a machine, she will believe she is.”

Peggy leans forward and wraps her arms around Dottie’s waist, clutching her tight into a hug. She closes her eyes against Dottie’s shoulder and shakes her head there.

Dottie feels her heart break a little inside, and it’s then that she realizes the complete truth of her favorite line in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. "I think you are wrong to want a heart,” Oz had said to the Tin Woodman. “It makes most people unhappy. If you only knew it, you are in luck not to have a heart." 

Peggy shakes against her for a moment, knitting her hands into Dottie’s red dress, as if she’s going to break into a thousand pieces. “I will help you,” she says, and her goodness, her determination to find some nonexistent morality in this girl sent here to kill her, breaks Dottie’s heart even further.

The wolf nudges Peggy with its nose, indicating the star glowing just behind them. It starts to shrink at the edges, pull in tighter. Peggy breaks apart from Dottie with a snap.

“We should go.”

The star behind them flickers. 

“We should go,” Dottie echoes.

“Suit yourselves, but I’m not waiting,” shouts Jack. He gives another shiver and then rushes headlong through the star, screaming loudly as he falls, and then landing with a thump outside the dimension, on some ground Dottie can’t see.

“I’M FINE,” he yells back up after an anxious moment. “GET YOUR ASSES DOWN HERE!”

“I’ll go next,” says Jason. Without waiting for any objections, he also pitches himself headlong through the star.

“YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE! YOU FELL RIGHT ON TOP OF ME!” Jack shouts from below.

“YOUR FAULT FOR NOT MOVING! WHO LIES THERE ON THE GROUND LIKE A FREAKING-”

“I JUST FELL OUT OF A DIMENSION, OKAY-”

“SO DID I! YOU’RE NOT THE ONLY PERSON IN THE UNIVERSE AND YOU KNEW WE’D BE COMING!”

“I’ll help them out,” sighs Daniel. He crutches over to the star, Peggy holding his other hand for support.

“Is it a long fall?” he calls to Jason and Jack.

“I’ll catch you!” Jason shouts up.

“I won’t!” Jack chimes in.

“Let me go first,” offers Jarvis. “Jason and I can catch him together.” He slips past Daniel, walks through the red light, and lands on the ground outside with only a small yelp. “I’ll catch you!” he shouts back up.

Daniel drops through. “Thank you, Jason, Jarvis,” Peggy hears faintly.

“I’m out,” says Howard. “COWABUNGA!”

And then it’s just Dottie, Peggy, and the wolf.

“Go,” says Dottie. “They’re your friends; check if they’re all right.”

Peggy nods; she doesn’t argue. She turns and steps through, falling and landing without a sound.

Dottie turns to the wolf.

“I took life from you,” she says, reaching out her her hand and resting it on its muzzle gently, rubbing her thumb back and forth in the creature’s fur. “You deserve to go back.”

The wolf shakes its head and nudges Dottie towards the still-shrinking red light. Go home, it seems to say. It’s too late for us. We died a long time ago.

Dottie closes her eyes. She is bad. She is not a good person, not even at her very core. She could have been, but it was taken from her, drilled out of her, replaced by strength and steel and claws and metal cuffs on beds. But there is one good deed she can do.

“COME ON!” Jack shouts, from the other side. “DOTTIE, COME ON!”

Peggy echoes him exactly. “Dottie, hurry! It’s still closing!”

Dottie takes a step forward, towards the warm, glowing edges of the star, which is closing faster by the second. The wind from the outside world teases her curls like it did the night she and Peggy spoke at the party, the real start of her mission, the start of this mess. The wolf nudges her forward again. Go, hurry, it tells her.

Peggy starts to levitate, raising herself up to Dottie’s level. Dottie can see blue sky behind her, the puffy clouds of New York State.

Dottie leans forward, her head breaking the through red glow and her hand reaching out to Peggy’s. Peggy takes it and frantically tries to pull Dottie out of the Rift. She tugs at the blonde girl, gathering her in her arms, pulling their torsos together. But Dottie’s feet are planted firmly on the other side. She kisses Peggy then, hard as she wants. Peggy’s hands go up in surprise but she leans into the kiss, still trying to pull Dottie the rest of the way out.

But Dottie breaks away. She pushes backward with her feet that are still in the Rift, breaking through the star again, back into the ice. She whirls in the snow and grasps the wolf by the scruff of its neck. She gathers all the strength, every ounce of all the magic and determination in her, and forces the wolf through -- and out of -- the star.

Then she falls backward into the snow, all her energy gone. The red star casts its light all over her still form. It reflects in her eyes, mirrors her dress.

The light fades as the star shrinks. Then it closes.

Peggy tumbles to the ground along with four other girls. Dottie looks at the black sky around her, smiles faintly, and lets her eyes flicker shut.


	49. Chapter 49

**United States, Present-Day**

Peggy groans and opens her eyes. She’s on her stomach, lying flat on the ground, in grass somewhere. She pushes herself to a sitting position and looks around, her head aching powerfully.  _ Concussed again _ , she dimly thinks, but she hopes it’s not the case.

Daniel is flat on his back near her. Jack is further off. Jason, Howard, and Jarvis are scattered around her like rag dolls thrown around a bedroom by a pissed-off child. Nobody’s bones look broken.

Farther away from Peggy are other people. Four girls, all small, thrown to the ground like Peggy was. They’re all dressed the same -- in a white tank top and small, black, athletic shorts.

As she looks at them, trying to figure out where they came from, one of them stirs. She’s blonde like Dottie, and her hair is in two braids. She jumps to her feet in one fluid, strong motion and snaps around to stare at Peggy. There’s something in the way she moves that’s familiar. And there are what looks like burn marks on her arms and a bruise at her wrist. Peggy thinks of the wolf. It was behind her. And the wolf… What happened to it?

“Anya,” the girl says, pointing to herself and lifting her chin. “Anya.”

“You’re the wolf,” Peggy whispers.

“We,” Anya says. She stumbles over the English. “We are the wolf.”

She gestures to the other girls around her, all still unconscious.

“And Dottie?” Peggy asks, scanning the ground, scanning the girls.

Anya shakes her head.

“And Whitney?”

Anya’s eyes flick to Jack, to Daniel, to Jason. She shakes her head again. “Gone.”

“For real?”

Anya tilts her head, as if she can’t quite understand the question. “Real,” she says.

Peggy clenches her hands together. Dottie is… Dottie  _ was _ .

“There’s no way to get Dottie back?”

“Ida. Ida Emke,” Anya corrects.

Peggy nods. “She killed you.”

“Not anymore.” 

Anya sits down in the grass and plucks up a blade of grass, twirling it between her fingers. She spots a dandelion and instantly flips over onto her stomach. She inches closer and stares at it as if it’s an alien lifeform. 

She looks to be about eight or nine. Younger than ten, certainly.

“Anya? Do you know what year it is?” Peggy asks, hesitantly.

Anya shakes her head. “No.”

“D- do you want me to tell you?”

Anya’s face twists and, for a moment, it looks like she might cry. Then it hardens. “No.”

She flops suddenly backward and stretches her arms into the grass, moving them back and forth in the green like she’s making a snow angel. “It’s so warm.”

Peggy hesitates but sits next to her. “Do you want to go home, Anya?”

“Don’t exist.” She doesn’t seem too saddened by that, rolling around on the grass like -- like a playful dog, like a friendly wolf.

“You like the grass, huh?”

Anya smiles into the sunlight and doesn’t reply.

“When do you think the other girls are going to wake up? And what are you going to do?”

“New home. Somewhere.”

“Do you want help?”

Anya sits up and tilts her head to one side. Peggy recognizes some of Dottie’s mannerisms in the younger girl; evidence of their training. She ignores Peggy’s question, instead scanning the landscape, a billion times more colorful as the snowscape in the Rift. “Somewhere. Somewhere over the rainbow.”

“Huh?”

Anya stands in another eerily fluid motion and starts to sing.

Her voice is quiet, breaking every other syllable with disuse, but her face is up and proud. “Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high, there’s a land that I heard of, once in a luba- lubaly. Lullaby.”

Anya stops singing and sits down again. She puts her head in her hands and rocks back and forth for a few moments before falling flat onto her back again, her eyes still dry. Every motion is sudden and swift and not entirely human. Not yet.

Peggy stands to go over to her again but Anya skits away, switching onto all fours and crouching in the grass. Peggy backs away from the girl. Her head is throbbing again. And Dottie’s gone.

“Peggy?” Howard asked, coming up behind her. He looks bad; there are bruises on his face and his lip is split and bleeding. “Do you know what time it is? Like an idiot, I left my phone in the Rift.”

Peggy becomes aware of cuts on her own face. “Shit,” she hisses, as the stinging starts.

Anya doesn’t show much sympathy, going back to the dandelion. 

Peggy turns to Howard. “You don’t look so good.”

“I don’t feel so good, either,” he half-chuckles. “Ow. But do you know the t-”

There’s a shout of glee from Anya, who has just discovered that moving the dandelion around makes the spores shoot off and dance on the wind. She scrambles to her feet and searches in the grass for another one.

“Who’s she?”

“Anya. She… she was the wolf. I think all the girls were.”

“The wolf?” Howard’s confused and clearly out-of-sorts, and if he lacks his phone, it’s no wonder.

Peggy’s eyes widen. “You were passed-out the whole time.”

“Peggy, what happened?” He clutches onto her arm, showing a tiny sliver of desperation. “The last thing I remember is being sucked towards the… towards the thing. And we went  _ in,  _ and everything was cold. So cold, Peggy, like it was eating me, like it was biting my skin.”

Howard’s not the most articulate, but Peggy understands instantly.

“And then we fell out, and now we’re back. But what happened? Where’s Dottie?”

Peggy stares around her. The subtle wind blows her hair, making her disheveled curls fall behind her shoulders. “That I don’t know.”

There’s another cry of delight from Anya, who is blowing the spores off another dandelion. Howard gestures to her. “ Peggy, what are we going to do with four kids?”

“What’s this?”

It’s Jason, wiping a hand down his face as he trudges up to the two of them.

But Peggy is not in the mood for questions. There’s something about the air, about the trees, about the ground. It’s solid and familiar. Everything about her; how the air hangs, how the colors of the world mix in the borders between leaf and sky above her, how her presence feels nestled among all the nature. Everything is home, and for a moment, she can’t bring herself to feel anything other than safety.

“I’m going to use my magic, float up, see if I can get a better vantage point,” Peggy says distantly, after a heartbeat. “I want to know if anyone saw us.”

Jason looks around, suddenly realizing something. “Hey, where’s Dottie? And who the hell are these other girls?”

Peggy tightens the muscles in her face and closes her eyes. “Dottie didn’t make it out of the Rift.”

“Anya, Yelena, Natalia, Eva,” Anya chirps, popping up again. There’s dirt on her face and clothing but she looks extremely happy. 

 

Jason jumps backwards. “Woah, who are you?”

“Anya,” Anya repeats, as if Jason’s stupid. “ _ Anya _ . Yelena,” she points to the closest girl, with curly blonde hair, “Natalia,” she skips down the tiny hill and points to a redhead, “And Eva.” She hops right and points to a brunette in braids sprawled at the base of a tree.

“What is it with the Russian names all ending in A?” Howard mutters. Anya scowls.

“What are they doing here?” Jason repeats.

“The wolf-” Peggy starts to say. Then she just sighs. “You were passed out the whole time, weren’t you? It carried you on its back all the way to the red star, and then we left.”

Jason is looking completely blank. His expression is mirrored across Howard’s face.

Peggy sighs again. “I’ve got a lot of explaining to do.”  _ And grieving. _

“Why don’t you do it on the way back? I don’t know about you, but I don’t have any idea how long we were in the Rift, and I really want to get back to my mom.”

“Alright, Jason. Good idea.”

Peggy closes her eyes and forces herself off the ground again, touching off the ground and rising upward above the tops of the few surrounding trees.

“There’s nobody coming. I think we can go home.”

She lands. Anya and Natalia are talking in rapid-fire Russian, gesturing widely and looking alternately happy and confused. 

“Anya, do you know where you are?” Peggy asks her.

Anya shakes her head solemnly and just says what she did before. “Over the rainbow.”

Peggy gives her a small smile.  _ Poor thing. She’s not in Russia anymore. _

Her thoughts change. She can’t think of Dottie.  _ It’s just like Steve all over again it’s just like Steve it’s just like Steve it’s justSHUT UP! _

She runs her hand through her hair, wishing for a ponytail holder. “Let’s go.”

They all straggle into a clumb, all of them bruised and bloody, and start the walk back towards their cars. Peggy turns her thoughts to something happy. Ice cream on summer days. Puppies, kittens, the smell of the kitchen in her house in Great Britain. The Statue of Liberty from the air, flying into New York. Meeting Angie.

Angie. Her thoughts can dwell there for a long time.

Jack is in the best shape, so he drives. While Peggy sits in the backseat, she’s really back at Toby’s Homemade Ice-Cream Parlour, with Angie, who’s laughing at something Peggy’s just said. She’s tucked in a cozy sleeping back in Angie’s den, close to peaceful sleep. She’s tucked up next to Angie, her head on her shoulder, watching Clueless.

“You mentioned something about a wolf?” Jason asks, after a while.  His voice is still crackly and breaks on every other word. He clears his throat and winces.

“Right. Well, it’s a long story.”

Jason, ever-noble, accepts that she doesn’t have the energy to tell and turns to look out the car window.

They stop at a convenience store, to buy candy and energy bars. 

“I can’t drive anymore,” Jack says, as he parks, his voice sounds distraught. “I’m sorry. I don’t have the focus.”

“It’s alright. Let’s just stay here until one of us feels well enough to.”

Everyone gives them weird looks on their way out of the car -- they’re a disheveled gaggle of highschoolers, one with a crutch and some bleeding visibly, but Peggy puts her gaze-repelling spell on them and after that they remain more or less unnoticed.

Peggy walks over to a small concrete ledge, the border between the gas station and an adjacent grass hill, and sits. The rest of them follow, except for Howard, who goes inside to purchase a bag of M&Ms.

The gas station workers glance over at the kids periodically, mostly disinterested, but making sure they aren’t dead. 

Her bottom starts to hurt, sitting on concrete, but lying backwards on the grass would make her oddly vulnerable, a position she doesn’t like. But exhaustion has overcome her. So even though it’s daylight, even though it’s (oh god; she doesn’t even know what time it is) in the afternoon, her exhausted body helps her slide backwards into real rest.


	50. Chapter 50

**United States, Present-Day**

She wakes up lying on top of an outcropping of rocks. It’s freezing, a chill she’s only felt once before in her life. The Rift. That’s where she is.

She sits bolt upright, shivers, and looks around. Her breath puffs into the air around her, white as the snow around her.

At the base of the rocks is a skeleton, half-buried in snow. White bones, lying prone. Whitney.

Peggy shudders and jerks her eyes from the body, looking again around her at the snow and the forest that she knows, that she hates.

It looks vaguely different and yet the same. Like a place you return to, years later, and there’s no definable change, but the time has done something to the place. Something you can’t quite land on; something you can feel more than see.

The trees are different, for certain. More blurred-out, looking even less like trees and more like an artist’s rendition them; almost real, but not quite.

Peggy hesitates and finally slides down the rock, on the other side from Whitney’s body.

The red star is gone.

Peggy keeps her gaze focused on her feet. She doesn’t want to run into another skeleton, because she knows who it would be.

The cold bites her, puncturing at her clothes. She’s dressed in grey, or rather the clothes she was wearing outside the Rift have been bleached of their color. Nothing is red like Dottie’s dress had been.

A world without red. The first thing she thinks of is “A world without blood.” And it takes her another moment, but she realizes that’s a world without life, either. 

Peggy blinks up at the sky. It’s slate-black, dull.  _ Please wake up. _

For the first time in her life, she doesn’t want to explore a new place.

She shivers hard and harder.  _ Wake up _ , she urges herself again.  _ Wake up. _

The dimension remains locked around her, and she worries that she might be stuck there again. Stuck in the cold, the endless, biting cold.

Already, she’s feeling sleepy. She moves one foot and then another before falling down into the snow around her.  _ Don’t sleep! DON’T SLEEP! _

But maybe if she sleeps, she’ll wake up, right? It seems to come from another whisper in her thoughts, something that isn’t her. Isn’t that dangerous? Something deep inside her flashes a warning sign.

It almost looks like the snow around her is turning dark, to black tendrils creeping up over her arms. The alarm inside her grows, but the desire to give into sleep is stronger. She slips deeper towards it.

But all of a sudden, all the snow and cold is gone.

Peggy blinks and opens her eyes, groaning faintly. Her hair is not only a mess, it’s caked with dirt and sweat into rock-hard curls, and her face and arms and clothes aren’t much better. She sits up, pushing away Howard, who was shaking her. “Pegs, wake up! The girls are gone!”

Peggy sits bolt upright and stares around her. Jack, Jason, Daniel, Jarvis, Howard, of course -- but no Anya, no Yelena, no Eva.

“There’s nothing we can do,” Peggy sighs, her panic immediately flagging. Somehow, she’s not upset. “I think they just need to figure out the world on their own.”

“But they’re kids!”

“No, they’re not, Howard. All except Anya are probably older than me.”

“You… you don’t think they’ll be trouble later on?”

Peggy can’t articulate it, even to herself, but she somehow knows. It comes from being a witch, being connected to something outside all of Earth, that the simple truths of this planet are suddenly obvious.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re sure they’ll be alright?”

“Yes, Howard. I know.”

That’s good enough for Howard; he trusts Peggy. So Peggy takes his M&Ms and eats them. The blue ones are the best.


	51. Chapter 51

**United States, Present-Day**

After a few moments, Peggy speaks again. “Can you drive again, Jack?”

Jack nods and turns away. As he does, Peggy notices that one of his fingers is bent at an odd angle. “Jack,” she says sharply.

“What?” Jack asks, immediately hiding his hand again.

“Is your finger broken?”

“No,” he says, and turns away. Peggy thinks back to when he had proclaimed he wouldn’t catch Daniel on the way down. “Just leave me alone, Peggy. I’ve been through a lot, and so have you.”

“Yes, Jack.” Peggy gives him a long look as he walks away from her, back into his car, where he plops himself down in the driver’s seat. Jarvis and Howard join him; Jason drives his car back, and Daniel his.

 

It takes another hour, but they finally reach home. Peggy splits off from the others, after personally seeing each one back to their residence. She pulls over by the side of the road for a few moments before turning the car around and driving to Angie’s house.


	52. Chapter 52

**United States, Present-Day**

Angie opens the door, and her mouth drops open. “What happened to you?”

“Please let me in,” Peggy breathes. “I promise I’ll explain.”

Angie nods quickly and ushers Peggy inside, closing the door behind her.

“Shower?” Peggy asks. Suddenly it’s all she can manage. 

Angie nods. “Take the pink towel.”

“Thank you so, so much.”


	53. Chapter 53

**United States, Present-Day**

Peggy gathers Angie up into her arms, burying her head on Angie’s shoulder, her wet hair leaving spreading splotches on Angie’s pajamas. She cries onto her shoulder, wet, ugly sobs with unintelligible words. It’s not pretty crying, but Angie just runs her fingers over Peggy’s back, back and forth like a rhythm, soothing her. 

Peggy pulls away slightly, wiping her eyes. “I’m so sorry,” she whispers, her voice long past broken. “I’m so sorry, Angie.”

Angie sighs. “Oh, English.”

Peggy starts to cry afresh, letting her emotions out, letting her tears out. “I’m so weak,” she chokes, inhaling wetly and shaking.

“The strongest thing a human can do is feel, Peggy,” Angie whispers back, drawing her hand back and forth on Peggy’s back, an unceasing, comforting rhythm. She kisses Peggy’s cheek, nothing too forward, but Peggy turns her head at the last second and it lands on the corner of her mouth.

“Oh,” Peggy says softly. 

Angie pulls back. “That was an accident!”

Peggy laugh-cries, her face crumpling again. Then the laugh becomes stronger than the crying. “It wasn’t that bad.”

She kisses Angie on the mouth again, chastely, sadly, and then wraps her again in a hug, still wrapped up in a towel. They stay like that for a long time, moving together in an embrace, Peggy crying on Angie’s shoulder and Angie rocking her back and forth, back and forth, her arms wrapped around her.

“Stay the night,” says Angie. “Take my clothes. Put on some pajamas. My dad’s ordering pizza anyway.”

“Thank you. Oh god, thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, English. I’m always going to be there for you.”

That night, they fall asleep together, Peggy in Angie’s bed and Angie in a sleeping bag on the floor.


	54. Chapter 54

**United States, Present-Day**

Peggy doesn’t dream of the Rift that night, waking in the morning at nine rested and calm.

Dottie is farther from her mind. Steve is farther still. She feels happy, rested. Accomplished, even. The ceiling of Angie’s room is soaked in the sunlight that’s draped all up and down the walls, collecting on Angie’s face and in her hair. There’s light, and hope with it, everywhere Peggy looks. And not the bleaching, scraping, destroying ice-white of the Rift, but the somehow darker, enriching light of home.

Angie’s eyes flicker open, feeling Peggy’s gaze. She turns and climbs out of her bag. “You are not kissing me until I’ve brushed my goddamn teeth. No more of those eyes, English.”

* * *

“So, how does it feel to have saved the world?” Angie asks, wryly, her spoon clinking against her bowl of Froot Loops.

“I didn’t,” Peggy laughs. She spoons another scoop of Cheerios into her mouth. It’s her favorite cereal and also, Angie argues, the blandest, but she likes the taste.

Angie scoffs. “Please, girl. You know magic.”

Peggy shrugs modestly. “That’s luck, mostly. Please don’t blow it out of proportion.”

“Blow it out of proportion? You’re shrinking it out of proportion! You saved the world!”

“Well, I had help. Howard, Jason, Jarvis, Daniel; even Jack.” She keeps Dottie far from her mind.

“Speaking of help.” Angie looks Peggy right in the eye. “Next time, you take me. Understood?”

Peggy nods. “I promise I will.”

Angie nods and spoons in another giant mouthful of cereal. She swallows. “I’ll hold you to it. Because I don’t think all this is over yet.”

Peggy tilts her head to the side. “How so?”

Angie makes a slashface. “Well, you never found those Red Room girls. Natalie and who now?”

“Anya, Natalia, Yelena, Eva.”

“Don’t you think they’ll be trouble later?” Angie asks, serious again. 

Peggy looks down at the table. “I hope not. I have nothing from them, and no way to track them.”

“What if they go back to the Red Room?”

“Anya said they wouldn’t.”

“And you believe that?”

“Well, no,” Peggy admits. “Or I wouldn’t, on words alone. But they died there; they were relentlessly abused there, from what I know from Dottie. What we gave them is freedom. There’s no way they’d return. I’m sure of that. And besides, I don’t know if this Red Room place is still even open.”

“All the same. If the Red Room is still open, English, we’re going to have to shut it down.”

Peggy nods slowly. It’s a nebulous idea that has drifted around her head ever since she first heard Dottie describe the torture there, but she’d been avoiding picking at it, wanting to pretend her work is done. “I know.”

“It’s in Russia, right?”

“If it hasn’t moved.”

Angie nods. “How long until we go after it?”

“As soon as we can, I suppose.”

“You need to rest, first. And figure out more of this witchery business.”

Peggy laughs at that. “Witchery business, huh?”

“Well, what else do you wanna call it?” Angie waves her fingers dramatically in the air. “I’m a witch! I’m a witchy witchy witch! So you’d better watch out, or I’ll curse your daughter for a thousand years!”

Peggy buries her face in her hands. “Angie, stop!”

Angie gives another giggle. “Alright, alright! You don’t quite fit that stereotype, huh.”

“Well,” Peggy raises her head, her eyes mischievous, “you never know, hm?”

Angie’s peals of laughter ring around the kitchen. “Shh!” Peggy hisses, good-naturedly. “You’ll wake your parents!”

Angie claps a hand over her mouth and giggles. “Sorry.”

Peggy shakes her head. “Don’t apologize for laughing!”

Angie nods. “Right.” She stops. 

“What is it?”

“Well, since we have the whole morning to ourselves… Would you mind explaining a bit more about what happened?”

Peggy nods, her smile fading. She takes her bowl into her hands and walks it into the kitchen. Angie follows her, also silent.

Peggy jerks her head towards Angie’s couch, right where they’d sat to watch Clueless before everything went to chaos. They sit. Angie waits for Peggy to begin to speak.

“I figured you’d want to know eventually,” Peggy begins. “Where do you want me to start?”

“Dottie. I knew her, too.”

“I know.”

Peggy folds and unfolds her hands in her lap. “She was a witch. Trained, and, I think, brainwashed by the Red Room. I was a threat, apparently. So she was sent to take my magic, which you can apparently do through some sort of… romantic entanglement.”

“So it was all fake, then?” Angie’s tone of voice is unreadable. “You and her?”

Peggy shakes her head. “No.”

Angie nods and lapses back into silence, letting Peggy talk.

“Why that is, I don’t know. But I do feel like love and magic are tied, somehow, in a way I can’t articulate. I also don’t know why she didn’t kill me. Maybe they don’t prefer to kill external victims. Maybe that’s messy, and from what I know of the Red Room, they like things to be precise and as non-incriminating as possible. So maybe it worked. And maybe it didn’t. Regardless, her mission was put on pause when Whitney Frost showed up.”

“And she’s the one who Rifted.”

“Right.”

“So you and Dottie teamed up.” Angie gives a wry, sad smile. “That must have been awkward. Oh, you just tried to kill me and/or take my magic! Now let’s be best friends!”

Peggy doesn’t laugh and Angie’s smile disappears. “I’m sorry.”

Peggy forces a smile and shrugs. “It’s fine.”

Angie places a hand on Peggy’s shoulder. “It doesn’t have to be. You don’t need to force everything to be fine.”

Peggy nods. 

In a few moments, she starts talking again. “Whitney wanted to be part of the Arena Club, an elite club of witches. To do that, you need a special pin. She tried to get Dottie to steal it for her, but I stopped her. Then Dottie was sent to juvie, but I think she kept herself there to protect herself.”

“Couldn’t Whitney just-”

“From the Red Room, I think. How could they have known she was going to be captured by Whitney and forced to rob a bank? It’s utterly absurd.”

“So to help you, to leave that place where she thought she was safe, she was making a sacrifice. Why?”

Peggy shrugs. “Dottie’s a puzzle. We’ll never understand her. I don’t think she wanted Whitney to destroy the world either, though she did say she didn’t care whether not not she herself lived or died. So we’ll never know.”

Angie nods. “Maybe that’s better.”

Peggy shrugs again. “One thing led to another. Whitney wanted to get more Zero Matter any way she could, including opening a Rift on her own. So we decided to do it first, because we didn’t know what other, dirtier ways she’d use. And because if she did it, she could destroy entire cities.”

“And you went into the Rift.”

“Yes. We chose a park to try and open it, but Jack and Daniel were there and got sucked into this whole mess. Very literally, in fact.”

“The Rift you opened pulled you all and Whitney in. So you fought in there?”

“Yes. And there was a wolf, some sort of amalgamation of all the souls of Red Room girls the Red Room girls had killed.”

Angie decides not to make another somewhat snarky comment, though it takes a lot of strength. “That’s strange.”

“Well, what about this isn’t? They’re very wolflike beings, these girls. I saw them, once we were all out of the Rift. And some of it in Dottie, too. How they moved, their trained ruthlessness, and a wildness about them.”

“How did you get out?”

“There’s an exit for every entrance, I guess. Dottie saw it, in the distance. And we went.”

“And Dottie didn’t make it?”

“She sacrificed herself.”

“But why?”

“Because she killed a girl. Anya, another Red Room witch. Anya -- the wolf -- they all got out.”

“And turned back into themselves.”

“I think, once they were out of the dimension, it released its hold on them. They were only the wolf in that dimension. I think, when they Rifted, the dimension took their souls and sort of… shifted them together. Then, it gave them back.”

“So why wasn’t Whitney’s soul in there, too?”

It takes Peggy a couple moments to think. “Because Anya and Natalia and Yelena and Eva Rifted and then died. Whitney wasn’t killed.”

“Well, until you ki- uh, defeated her.”

Peggy closes her eyes. “Yes.”

“Look, Peggy! You did what you had to. You did an amazing thing!”

“Not without some people paying the price.”

“It’s the choice they made. Whitney Rifted. Dottie sacrificed herself. Let them have the choices they made, Peggy, and respect them.”

Peggy nods again. “I’ll try,” she whispers.

Angie hugs her again. Peggy kisses her gently and Angie kisses back. It gets deeper and tighter and both of them cling to each other, holding on with all they have. Both know Peggy might not have come back.

It’s a few minutes into the teenage kissing (almost but not quite making out) that Angie’s dad comes down the stairs.

Peggy and Angie instantly break apart and turn to stare at him, faces flushed.

He stares back at them, his face perfectly mirroring their surprise.

“Well,” Angie sighs, stretching out on the couch leisurely. “Guess this is a good a time as any to say I’m pansexual.”

“I’m bi,” Peggy chimes in.

Angie’s dad nods, not entirely surprised, and takes it in stride. “Want me to make you girls some pancakes?”


	55. Chapter 55

**United States, Present-Day**

Back at Peggy’s house, she smiles up at her ceiling, lying on her bed. Angie’s face and lips are still very much in her mind, covering, for the moment, the bleakness of the past few days and hours. Angie is there for her.

She pulls her thow pillow onto her stomach and tosses it up in the air, watching it spin towards the ceiling and back down to her bed. She’s bored, and so happy to be so; it means that she’s safe, that there’s no fear thrumming through her blood, that she’s relaxed instead of running for her life.

She lies on her bed in silence, watching the sun on the ceiling and the faint sounds of birds outside and the rumbly, occasional passing of cars. She listens to the silence between the noises of a neighborhood and she looks at the light spaces between the colors of the world. She rests.

And then there’s a ring from her phone on her dresser.

Peggy, sighing, goes to it, then stopping when she sees the number. It’s Howard’s old number. _But he lost his phone, didn't he?_ It’s odd, and Peggy hesitates to pick the call up. Then, in a flash, she remembers.

“I left my phone in the Rift,” Howard had said angrily.

There’s only one person who could be calling.

Peggy lifts the phone to her ear, answering the call.

As soon as she hears the voice, she smiles.

 

THE END.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. There's the book, my first novel. Please tell me what you think <3 and thank you for reading.


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